A Fox's Vice's and Virtues
by Snowwyy
Summary: Thrown into a the Naruto verse a Fox, Sven Hartt gets adopted into the Nara family first as a pet, then as a brother. Watch as this male oc makes friends, enemys, and many mistakes, with a completely sarcastic attitude! This story is a collab. and tbh allot going on, hard to explain! give it a read friends :D
1. Chapter 1-Nothing left to loose

There are certain phrases in this world that impact a person in way's you can't even understand until they are spoken to you. 'I love you.' three simple words on their own, but together they are magic. 'I hate you." said by the right person can wreck you. 'your going to die' well, those words sewn together were devastating.

I was told that three months ago, by the doctors. they estimated I had about two-to- four weeks left now. I had tried everything available, every test, every doctor, no matter how unorthodox, no matter how expensive. Still the doctor would look at me with the same sad eye's 'your dying.' but I refused to give up, I wasn't just going to die, not without one hell of a fight. I wanted to leave this world knowing I tried my damndest to live, though the more I fought the deeper debt I was in. That was a problem for if I lived though. Can't expect money from me if I'm dead. It's not like it would fall onto my family after I was gone anyways. I had no family.

My stomach growled but I didn't dare eat, for the last week nothing would stay down. I was getting close death, I could feel it. And boy was it scary. I didn't have many regrets, my life no matter how short had been good. Maybe not what a normal person would think as good, seeing as I spent my life in a boy's home, lived in a crap apartment, and had no close friends- but I wasn't normal. I liked being alone, being around people made me feel suffocated and anxious. Maybe that's why people thought it was so weird that I was fighting so hard, in their eyes I was fighting for nothing.

There was a knock on the door, my breathing was laboured- it always was- so it was a struggle to call out.

"Come in." I croaked, pulling my heavy body into a sitting position on the couch, the door opened and one of the many doctors I had gone to came in. "Doctor. Omel?" he hurriedly walked to me sitting on the love seat across from the couch. He was a tall, skinny, blond English man, with what could only be described as crazy eye's.

"Sven Hartt, I'm here to tell you about a recent development I made that could save you, or kill you." Um what? Who just opens with that? "You are out of options the way I see it, this could very well be the last chance you have." he said in a thick English accent. Well he was right about that, I was at a dead end.

"Lay it on me." I sighed.

"I have created a machine that can heal you, The only catch is, is that your soul has to leave your body during the process. It will be suspended in time, until your body has recovered. Theoretically of course." Of course, it's always theoretically with Doctor crazy eye's. "What do you have to loose?" I starred down at the carpet, I had nothing to loose. If it worked I'd be healed, if it didn't- well I was going to die anyways.

"Hand over the paper work."

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.

I was still filling out the consent forms by the time we arrived at his 'lab' though it looked to me like an abandoned building, but I decided not to point that out and potentially offend the man who would be removing my soul from my body, although when I read over the paper work it said something about dimensional travel, to renew the body or something like that. Either way I was getting healed, and it was free so that was a plus. I followed the doctor down into the basement of the rundown building, with his assistance. Once we got down stairs though it looked like a state of the art lab, so that was good news.

"Change into the gown then step into that chamber." Doctor Omel ordered. We went through the boring process of verbal consent, and I stood in said glass chamber for what felt like forever while I watched the Doctor type away on the computer. He came up to the chamber's doorway. "Where ever you end up you might not have any recollection of your life here. This here is a folder of your medical information." He handed me said folder.

"I thought you said it was just my soul leaving, and you said nothing about it going anywhere else." I said starring at the man pointedly. He just shrugged as though it didn't matter.

"You read the papers." He ran a hand through his hair. "Okay so there is a possibility you will not be transported in the same form." what the hell did that mean? "And there is also a possibility you will die, are you still sure you want to do this." He eyed me carefully. He had asked me this question a million times already.

"Yes, I'm sure." He clapped his hands merrily pressing a few buttons on the control panel of the chamber, and the glass door shut, making a whizzing noise as it was sealed.

"This chamber is going to fill with liquid, try not to panic." sure I'll just watch as I slowly am submerged and NOT panic. "Ready Mr. Hartt?" I nodded to him. What do I have left to loose?

He started feverishly typing on the computer and adjusting nobs on the control board, I felt like I was in a bad sci- fy movie or something. The chamber started filling with strange clear liquid, but as it reached my toes I could tell it wasn't water. Water doesn't sting. The Doctors face went from hopeful to excited as he watched the liquid slowly climbing up my legs, as it reached my knees he pressed a button and the pad I was standing on began to glow, and all outside noise was replaced with a whirring sound.

Don't panic, don't panic.

Although it was hard not to panic when the doctors excited expression changed to terrified. He went back to the computer typing like a maniac, he looked at me, I couldn't hear what he said but I read his lips. 'Stand very still' easier said than done. The computer he was working on and control board caught on fire. Well shit. The water was about to fully cover me now, I tugged in a last breath. The fire was spreading, a faint sound of an explosion reached my ears and the last thing I saw was Doctor Omel mouthing 'good luck'.

Than everything was white, sometimes I'd see something through the white, as if it was nothing but a cloud of smoke. Finally it felt as though I zeroed in on a hazzy image, that's when the spinning started, it kind of reminded me of being flushed down a toilet. The spinning stopped, and I fell hard onto a wooden surface, A puff of tobacco smelling smoke came at me. I coughed, looking up. I quickly backed away from what I saw. It was a giant, I'm not even joking, no words of a lie, there was a giant in front of me. He was wearing a strange looking white and red hat and matching robes, with a pipe hanging out of his mouth. He was starring at me slightly amused than reached for me. I quickly backed away falling off of what seemed like a damn cliff squeaking as I fell down. I looked back up, turns out the giant was just looking at the file I had brought with me.

"Hmmmmm" he said thoughtfully flipping through the papers, his voice was gravely and deep. "Well little guy I have no Idea what any of this means." He said placing the papers down. I tried to tell him what it was, but I couldn't talk. I tried to stand. My legs were shaky, but weirder than that was the fact that I had four. I began panicking. What the hell was I? A dog? "Lets bring this to the codes and encryption department, than bring you to the Inuzuka vet. I'm not sure if they can do anything for foxes but it's worth a shot."

A fox?

I was a fox.

Well that's just bloody brilliant.

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 **This story is brought to you inpart by _Pokezeb_ , the master mind behind the Idea, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy! **

**I will be updateing this story one to two times a week, I have most of it written out already!**

 **the first few chapters will be short but the others are crazzzzzzy long, so hang in there 3**

Also I dun got a beta o,o so if there are mistakes I am very sorry, I dont know how to get a beta, so i just do the best I can \o.o/


	2. Chapter 2-A Fox's Chakra

I felt groggy as I slowly began to stand, I slowly began to stand, I felt un even and weird. Having four legs was bizarre. Wait why do I have four legs? Images flashed through my mind but nothing made sense, I was human was I not? Why did I have four legs? More images flashed through my mind, voices that I were so familiar but I just couldn't grasp what they were saying.

I looked around at my surroundings. I was in a forest, a massive forest, everything looked far to big to be real. I searched through my memory, but came up blank. How odd. I took a few steps but it felt odd, my two right feet went forward than my left. I walked for a bit but nothing felt familiar, it seemed almost fake, I tried to look down at my self. I had white fur and four paws. I sat down looking at the pads of my front right paw. They were cat like, but not quite.

This is frustrating. Wait I was told what I was, I just had to concentrate.

I saw an old man in white and red robes. His voice sounded far off and watery in my memory.

"I don't know if they can do anything for foxes, but it's worth a shot." I snapped out of the memory.

Right I was a fox. But I though I was human, I feel human. _**Hungry**_. An inner voice called to me. I was hungry, but it's not like I could make food in my state. _**Hunt**_. My feet began to moves seemingly on their own, I noted that I made next to no sound. I sniffed the air. I smelt something delicious thirty metres away. I felt like my mouth was watering with anticipation. I silently ran to the smell, I stopped once it was in my sights. It was a rabbit, probably the same size as me. I ghosted around it in a flanking it so the wind wouldn't push my scent towards my prey. Crouching under bushes, I waited watching it move, calculating. I didn't even have to think about it, it's like my mind and body knew what to do even if I didn't. I lunged forwards and in several fast leaps had the rabbit locked in my jaw, clamping down on it's neck until it was still. _**Eat**_. Ew gross I couldn't eat it raw. _**Eat**_! I bit into it and all thoughts of it being gross went away as I bit into the flesh. I was full before I had finished it so I left i where it was moving toward the sounds of water near by. Cleaning off my white coat in the water I heard footsteps approaching and quickly retreated into the bush. It was two humans. Two small humans, young ones, with baby round faces. One was plump and the other lean. I strained to understand them, it was weird hearing them talk, it felt like I knew the words but it didn't compute. I concentrated harder.

"Class...Tomorrow...pain...home."

"Food...nervous...fun...each other."

"Yeah...Idea...eat...here...mine"

"Lets...going...excited." it was getting easier and easier the more I listened, but right once I was almost getting the hang of it they started to leave. I waited for a few heart beats before following in the cover of the bushes. I'm not sure why I was hiding, its not like they would be suspicious of a fox. Eventually they lead me into a village looking area, it looked like it was old, yet new. The set up of the shops and houses looked before electricity, yet inside the shops I would see stoves and lights. It was weird. I couldn't really pay attention though it was getting harder to follow the two humans I had been tailing. There wasn't many places to hide, to many people. I felt like I was suffocating I run forward towards the kids walking a few paces behind them. They probably wouldn't care if I followed. Well hopefully. Now that I was closer to them I felt allot safer.

"...following..." the plump one said to the lean one. The lean one waved his hand dismissively.

"Stray...fine." he stuck his hands in his pockets and kept walking, the plump one shrugged. Why would they care if a fox followed them. They would probably think I was a stray dog or cat. The plump one waved to the other than ran off in a different direction. I looked after him for a second than continued following the lean one. I was walking along beside him now, he laced his fingers together behind his head, eye's closed walking without a care in the world. I looked up at him, he looked completely relaxed, he had a very calming presence. I liked him. We turned down a street, than another, than to a house. A very Asian looking house, he walked up the stairs and I followed beside him nimbly jumping up each step. The child turned to me hand on the door.

"Stay." He told me, I sat down as he starred at me cocking my head from side to side as he slid the door open and disappeared inside. Well. I looked around quickly than walked around the house under there deck like thing. I found the boy again on the back of the house sitting with an older man who looked much like him. Even the same black spikey ponytail. I could hear sliding and tapping of wood on wood but besides that they were both silent, with a strange box thing in front of them. I spotted a set of stairs up to the veranda and silently walked towards them.

"...fox?" The man asked the boy, starring at me.

"He followed me home." The boys said. Whoa wait! I understood him.

"...Mother...food...game." the man looked away from me and back to the game, seeming not to care about my presence. I'd much rather live under this kids house than in the forest. I walked over sitting down beside the boy and looked at the wood box. This was shogi! Aw man this kid was loosing. The whole game was lost, unless he put forth three sacrificial pieces, leaving him with less than half what the man has, but he might be able to win the game. I cocked my head to the side and looked up to the boy. It was his turn and he was thinking hard on his next move. He had to know it was doomed right? I watched him than looked back to the board. I stood carefully on my back paws placing one on the edge of the board to steady myself and the other to push a piece forward, then looked to the elder man. I sat back down, they both starred at me with wide eye's but the man went for his turn. He took the piece I had just moved. Good. I moved the next piece, both of them still gaping but the man still took his turn, the last sacrificial piece was put forth and taken. Now for the real match to continue. If I thought they were giving me surprised looks before, now they looked like they both thought they were tripping, watching a fox intellectually play shogi. The game went back and forth allot, from me winning to the other man, but in the end I had won. I let out and excited bark (which by the way sounded more like a howl/ owl ho than a bark) and hopped around the veranda. They both looked to be in minor shock, but the boy pet me on the head, I nuzzled into his hand as he scratched my head, than all of a sudden hated it and backed away. Weird body. I pounced around them for a bit.

"what...where...fox...keep." I rolled over three times before getting caught on the boys leg, I stayed tummy up starring at him.

"He started following me and Choji by the river, he was little so I didn't feel bothered by it." I cocked my head to the side. This one sided conversation was annoying. The boy smiled down at me before looking back up to the man. Hey I wonder if I could learn to talk. Like maybe make my howls form words. No my barks were high pitch and piercing that wouldn't work.

"Mother...I'll talk...water." the boy got up and went through the open door. No one made a movement to stop as I followed him in. I followed him to a kitchen like area. Food. My ears twitched as i heard the faint sound of a small animal running across the floor a room over. I carefully stalked it. I waited, it was under a couch but it was waiting to make it's run to the next couch. Wait for it...NOW! I pounced on the little critter catching it in my teeth and clamping down on it, killing it instantly. I walked back outside to the man jumping into the grass and dropping the mouse. I didn't really feel like eating, I just ate. I picked it back up walking to the man and putting it in front of him. He was the oldest and probably the dominate one, if he didn't want it I'd give it to the boy. He looked down at the mouse than to me, He smiled as I turned my head to the side. He picked up the creature by it's tail.

"Thanks." I made a chortling sound than walked back into the house to the boy. He had put down a bowl of water and news paper in the corner of the kitchen. What was the news paper for? Were they trying to potty train me? Definitely not happening. I walked back outside past the curious man and onto the grass again. I yipped at him, than pointedly peed on the ground. He gave a deep throaty chuckle and called to the boy.

"Shikamaru...trained...mom..." the boy came up as I finished up, he smiled and scratched his head.

"Do you think mom will let us keep him?" He asked the older guy- his father-.

"...Think so" they kept talking but I became uninterested and tired so I laid down and closed my eye's not truly sleeping, but resting. I bolted up and under the deck when I felt another human nearing the house. The boy dropped down to the grass crouching down and peering at me while the other moved towards the new human.

"Come here." the bay said to me beckoning out his hands. I was going to start moving but than he started making those noises that you make to cats, how rude. I'm not a stray cat. I gave him a; 'are you kidding me'. "Come on, if you want to stay with us you have to meet my mom. And be really cute." He explains. Did I want to live with them? Well I assume it would beat living in the forest like a normal fox. I walked towards him and he picked me up in his arms. I moved around feeling uncomfortable being man handled but stayed in the boys arms. He carried me into the house and stood beside the man, across from a women.

"...FOX!" I covered my ears as she yelled.

"Smart...Shogi...Shikamaru." The man said back in a calm voice.

"He is potty trained, and he mousses." The boy who I was assuming was Shikamaru explained to the women.

"...Kinda cute...See." before I knew it I was being passed to the women. I ignored the instinct to maul her or pee and let her grab me in her arms. She held me like a baby. I was supposed to be cute right? I cocked my head from side to side as she smiled down at me. How am I supposed to act cute? She scratched my stomach, making me squirm and uncomfortable at first but than it felt nice so I let it continue. "I...him...keep...Shika's..." She placed me on the ground patting me on the head before standing back up.

"Can I bring him to school tomorrow?" The boy asked hopefully. I thought about that for a second. If I went to school with him I may learn about where I am and maybe why I'm a human in a fox body. Though I felt more and more confused by that. Maybe I was just a smart fox. Sometimes I felt more fox than human. Maybe school would help me understand something about my situation.

"I...maybe...Inuzuka...yeah." The man said.

"That's...idea...sure...mind." the women said. I was really getting tired of not being able to understand them.

"you should...him." Shikamaru's dad said to him.

"Maybe I'll name him, Hihasu?" Ew gross. I growled up to him shaking my head. "Okay not that. How about Mugon?" better but no. I shook my head again. "How about Seishin?" that one I liked. I rolled over and yipped at him to show my approval. "Okay Seishin it is!" he bent down to pet me. "Do you want to go to school with me?" he asked. I nodded my head against his hand and they all smiled. Wait was he even allowed to bring a fox to school? Whatever I'd let him figure that out. They all walked toward the front door and I followed beside the boy. We walked down streets together than entered a shop about ten minuets after we left. It appeared to be a pet shop. I sat while they talked looking around the store. I felt uncomfortable, like there was a bigger animal around and I needed to leave. That's when I saw it, it made me feel like an ant, the biggest dog I'd ever seen. Though to be fair I hadn't seen a dog before but he stood beside a women and his head came up to above her waist. She was talking to my humans but I wasn't paying attention, I was starring at the dog as he starred back. That's when he talked to me.

"Hey Kit, what's your name." this wasn't normal was it? I looked up at Shikamaru but he didn't seem to notice.

"My name is Seishin." I said back to the dog. "How can you talk?" I thought it was a fair question.

"My name is Kuromaru, I'm a Ninken, I can talk with humans but it doesn't seem like you can, but animal usually understand each other, if they are intelligent." He said to me.

"That doesn't really answer my question as to how. What is a Ninken?" The humans were watching us now.

"Well I'm a ninja hound, Tsume's companion, that's what a Ninken is." He explained to me. He kind of sucked at explaining.

"She is a ninja?" I asked looking up at the women -Tsume- she was wearing a green vest, baggy pants, and sweater. She had wild hair, and smelt of dog.

"Yes and so are your humans. Though your companion is in training." I looked at Shikamaru. Training to be a ninja huh?

"Could I learn to talk?" I asked Kuromaru.

"Maybe, you seem intelligent enough."

"Can you tell them I already ate today and not to buy me any food I can just hunt for myself?" I have no idea why that's what I decided to tell them.

"Your fox says he already ate today, and not to buy him food, he can hunt by himself." He translated for me.

"is there books to read about learning to talk, or about Ninkens?" he made a shocked noise.

"You can read?!"

"Well yeah I'm pretty sure." I looked at a near by package of food. "All natural food pellets." I said reading the writing.

"Well they have books on Ninkens but it's mostly for the humans." He tell me. "But I guess it's a good place to start." He makes a shrugging move than looks towards my humans. "Your kit can read, so get him books on Ninken."

"Seishin can read!?" Shikamaru exclaims. Honestly I play shogi, should me reading really surprise them?

"One last question Kuromaru. Why cant I fully understand my humans? I can understand the boy, but not the older male and female."

"Well that comes in time, you can understand the boy fine because you chose him as a companion. The older male and female will take a day or two to understand. You just have to get used to there voices." Makes sense. That's what I had assumed. "also don't get him a collar, get him a vest or bandana." Kuromaru tell my humans, as he and his companion leave. Well this was a productive outing.

"So you can understand me Seishin?" Shikamaru asks. I nod him. "Okay blink if you want a bandana and stand on your hind legs if you want a vest." I blinked once. "Bandana it is." The three human set to work finding me things I needed, like a bed and water dish, I think they got some toys. We left the store, outside they put a black bandana around my neck with a symbol on it than we set off again. This time they led me into a bookstore. The man held the cover of a book for me to see.

"Good?" he asks. It read; 'the basics of Ninken.' it would probably be a good start. I nodded and they went to pay for it while me and Shikamaru waited outside for them. My body was getting tired, I went on my back legs pawing at Shikamaru's leg. He looked down at me.

"Are you tired?" I nodded. He sighed and picked me up, if only he wasn't wearing a weird mesh shirt, I could probably just nestle myself in his shirt, but instead he had to hold me. Next they went into a restaurant well I laid under the table resting. It was kind of strange no one questioned them about bringing a fox in. They stayed for a long time even after they had finished eating, they were chatting about me, but I didn't care enough to listen, being in the restaurant was annoying, there was many smells and many people, all talking. It made my senses blurry and that made me uncomfortable. I placed my nose onto Shikamaru's leg so that his scent would drown out most of the others, making the stay a bit more bearable. That's when I picked up a familiar scent. The plump boy from earlier.

"...Shikamaru!" the boy called out. I stayed under the table as the boy slid into the booth. Great now we definitely wouldn't be leaving soon. I slunked back down to a comfortable position and fell asleep.

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The four of us walked to school the next day, Shikamaru seemed completely disinterested and calm even though most children would be nervous. I liked this kid. His mother had been fussing over him all morning, making him get up early to do stretches. I chortled at him as he had complained, but ultimately done what she asked. For the past day with them I had realised that the female was he most dominate one in this house. Guess I'd have to catch her a mouse. Shika's mother was still pestering him now, about his posture, paying attention, being nice. I tuned her out, and I'm sure Shikamaru did too. We reached the school yard, there were about twenty-to- thirty kids and parents waiting outside the front doors about Shikamaru's age, than there some visibly older. The plump boy and his parents walked towards us, and a tall blond man and young girl. The young girl bent down excitedly looking at me.

"...cute...I...him" I couldn't understand but I knew she wanted to pet me.

"If he will let you." Shika told her blandly. She reached out her hands for me to sniff, gross I don't know where that's been. But she did smell allot like flowers, of all different sorts, it almost made me want to be sick, she didn't seem threatening so I bowed my head for her to pet. "You can pet him now." Shikamaru told her, She scratched behind my ear smiling brightly at me. I guess she isn't that bad, even if she smells horrible. A loud bell rang that literally made my ears feel like bleeding.

"OH SWEET JESUS!" I yelled covering me ears. Though to the humans I'm sure they only heard a whine. It took a second to recover from the noise and just as I did Shika waved bye to his parents and began walking, with me close at his heels. We walked at a painfully slow pace due to being stuck behind other children. The plump child joined us as we slowly walked down the hall and into a classroom, Shika sat at one of the back table's and the plump one sat beside him. I sat on top his desk as more and more kids poured into the class. I didn't pay any attention to them, except for one that had pink hair. How weird. I suddenly felt a prickle like feeling behind my head, I turned and saw a small white dog sitting on top of a child's head starring at me teeth barred. I chortled at it, and it growled. The boy picked it up of his head and turned around to look at me.

"...why...Ninken!?" The boy yelled to Shika. The boy had the same cheek markings as Kuromaru's companion had yesterday.

"He is a fox, and my companion." Shika explained lazily lacing his hands together behind his head.

"...Fight!" Shika looked to me.

"Do you want to fight the dog." here in the class? I nudged my head to the clock. "He says later. It's class now." He understood me so well. I laid down on the desk, the teacher began to talk but I could only understand a few words here and there so I closed my eye's to rest at the same time Shikamaru laid his head on the desk to sleep.

I got nudged awake by Shika everyone appeared to be leaving, he picked me up and I hung onto his shoulder as he walked, that way I was less likely to be trampled. The plump one followed us outside. The three of us sat under a tree as the two of them ate.

"HEY!" My body acted before I could think and I threw myself in front of Shika crouched down ready to pounce, but it was just that red marked boy and his dog. I straightened out again licking at my paw. The dog jumped down from the red marked boy growling at me.

"What?" Shika and I both asked, though in different tongues.

"Akamaru here want to challenge your cat!" the boy yelled.

"excuse me I'm not a cat." I said offended at the accusation.

"Seishin is a fox. And if he wants to, go right ahead." I eyed the dog. If I said no they would just think I was scarred.

"Hey can you talk?" I asked Akamaru. He looked at me and growled. Huh guess not.

"I can." was all he said. I looked to Shika and nodded.

"He said sure."

"Get him Akamaru!" The red marked boy whooped. I probably shouldn't have agreed to this. I don't know how to fight. The little white pup came at me my body urged me to move, and I let them take over my actions. He had aimed for a single strike kill. Stupid dog, I pushed to the side spinning quickly to where he had landed pushing off the ground. A weird tingly feeling went from my gut to my feet making me move faster than my eye's could follow, but I didn't need to see my animal instincts knew what to do with or without sight. My jaw landed around his neck and I squeezed lightly so he would know I won.

"Akamaru!" The boy called out when he heard the dog whine, I let him go and sat down next to my human.

What was that weird tingly feeling?

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 **well I hope you guys like it so far, it's a bit dull of course but they are all young whatchu expect? I hope you guys liked it, and I see you next chapter!**

 _Snowwyy ^.^_


	3. Chapter 3-A Fox's body Limitations

_**Hello guys, for those who read these first four chapters while this story was up before, this is a brand new update. This is a fast forward through Shikamaru's academy days, because as much as little kids are cute and stuff, i find it dull to write, so instead enjoy this fast forward through Shins thoughts, AND please don't hate me for skipping the academy days o.o'**_

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Getting used to chakra the awakening of chakra in my body was difficult. I felt it move with me every time I moved, i felt it stretch and pull as I walked or tensed. If it was just that it would have been easier to grow accustomed to, but I felt chakra every where, when I breathed in a deep fog of charged air would enter my lungs, and the air would tickle my skin. Everything felt alive, the ground, the wind, the water. It all had a presence that was impossible to tune out.

I barely left thee house. I felt so suffocated.

I think the thing that scared me the most is that I could move the warm firey chakra inside e, but I could also move he cool refreshing chakra around me. I could pull the outside chakra in, and I don't think any one in y family could do that.

Actually I know they didn't.

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Time went on as time does, and each day- each year, the weight of my fox body seemed to get heavier. I couldn't help feeling like I wasn't a fox, this wasn't how it was supposed to be.

It's not something I can really put to words, but when I had to wait outside while they ate at a restaurant, or when I couldn't sit on couches or even communicate with my family without acting everything out to them.

It wasn't just depressing it was also embarrassing, and confusing because i can see my fox body but ...it feels wrong. I don't even know...it just...I wasn't supposed to be like this.

One day after Shika had gone to bed and i had come home from a run through the forest I came back with a book left on the veranda, which is weird, because despite my father and brothers lazy attitudes, they were clean, so they wouldn't just leave it there. I plomp down next to the book feet tucked and tummy touching the cool wooden surface.

'beginner fuinjutsu'

I read the tittle in my head. Interesting. No one in the house had ever shown interest in seals was it left for me?

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The hardest part of learning seal work was the calligraphy. I didn't have thumbs...that was the main problem. Actually it was the whole problem.

"Well you know, I see all the ninja just do hand signs then touch the ground when they do summoning, and that's a kind of seal." Shika offered looking at the failed "tape a brush to Shins paw" plan. I gave my brother a quizzing look, he scratched his head then looked into space for sometime. I don't know when it happened but the little nugget I had decided to tag along with, was eight now, and possibly smarter then me. In ways, he still looked at all my fuinjutsu books like they were in another language.

"Think of it this way." Shikamaru randomly exclaimed, clearly done thinking over his thought. "You know we control out shadows and how it moves, with out chakra?" He asks and I nod. " well instead of shadows, you use chakra."

And that was the day I made a seal to let me speak.

.

.

"What is this?" Dad asked looking at the notes scrambled around me.

"Well you know how Shika has bad sight?" I asked him. It wasn't something Shika advertised or we talked about, but anyone who looked closely at him would notice ho he squinted to see things more than two meters away, he worked through it well, and when he tried he threw kunai with about the same accuracy as his class mates, but I think he just observed how they threw the trajectory and not on the target, because I'm not sure how well he could actually see it.

But my family never talked about feelings or problems or much really, it was to troublesome, so we let Shika deal with it himself.

"Yeah." Dad nodded picking up the note book I pushed towards him using my snout. He scratched the scruff at the point of his chin thoughtfully. "Shin, I really don't know what this is." He tells me dryly looking at the five trigram seal I had created.

"Okay well, basically. Or theoretically it will fix Shika's vision. You know ho my voice seal works?" I ask his touching the seal on the back of my neck.

"It reuses it's on chakra to keep working indefinitely?" He asks, sitting down and crossing his legs, settling in for a long talk.

"Yes, so basically, this seal is like that, I had to look into a few iryo ninjutsu books-"

"Where did you get Iryo ninjutsu books." I freeze and my eyes widen. Damn it. He was onto me. "You know what the less I know about it the better continue." Dad chuckles. I sigh in relief. Breaking into the hospital archives to find the research journals was probably very illegal...

"Okay so anyways, the seal will basically just act like a pair of internal glasses so he can see. But if the seal is disrupted it ill g back to normal. It doesn't fix anything, its like a band aid." I tell him sadly. "But it's hard to disrupt this sort of seal, because I have created a new technique to make the seals stick!" I tell my father excitedly.

"so you wont randomly go mute again?" He asked with raised eyebrows. My voice seal would often get rubbed off or after a while the ink would fade. Seal masters could get the ink to stay by implanting it into the skin. I hadn't been on that level yet, but finally I was there.

"How is it a new technique though? Aren't permanent seals common?" Dad asks me curiously. I smirk as best I can ith a fox face and chortle a laugh.

"thats what I thought to, but the permanent seals that are made, literally seal something inside of them, like the tailed beast. Mine are more performance enhancer's." I explain. "So I am calling them 'runes' instead of seals." I announce out loud .

"Runes huh?" Dad chuckles, and I'm sure if I could blush I would.

.

.

I learnt to do my own jutsu's, but they were small and low powered, and I didn't have very much chakra.

So I did the next best thing. I began creating seals that would do the hard work for me. I just had to activate them. Is it cheating? Maybe.

But if I couldn't fight in the traditional route, I would find a way. Since if I couldn't be strong I'd slow Shika down.

I think that was weighing on me more now that Shika was close to graduation. What could I do for him in this body? Bite ankles and spit fireballs at people? Sure I could track and run fast, and hunt. But if we were in battle, I was small, smaller then most dogs.

So every moment I had to spare would be stuck in thought.

How could I escape the limitations of my body?


	4. Chapter 4-A Fox hates to loose

"If I have to go, you have to, too!" Shikamaru yelled grabbing me around the ribs and pulling me out of bed I dug my claws into the fabric of the blanket but it was just pulled off with me, I landed on the ground with a thump, grumbling. "I'll get the spray bottle." Shika said in a annoyed tone, I stood up right away blinking he blurriness of sleep away. "Troublesome." He said as he left the room with me at his feet. He went to the backyard to stretch and I went to the woods to catch myself some breakfast. School was so annoying I already knew everything the teacher talked about, the only fun part was the spars, but I was rarely allowed to join. Plus everyone wanted to talk to me, I had learnt a seal to put on the throat so I could talk to the humans, but I still preferred to stay quiet most of them time, but all they wanted to do was talk.

It didn't take me long to find a squirrel, I brought it back home it's lips body between my teeth. I dropped in in our backyard watching Shika stretch as I ate. I was much bigger now I came up to Shika's waist, so I ate the whole thing now. Shikamaru went inside but I stayed out cleaning my fur and watching the sky.

"Seishin! Time to go!" The women called. She told me to call her 'mother' but that was weird. I pulled my self up grumbling and walked inside towards the door, Shika said by to his mother and we left.

"You almost done school yet." I asked lazily walking forward.

"About a month left." We both sighed.

"Shin! Shikamaru!" someone yelled behind us.

"It's the plump one." We stopped walking waiting for him to catch up.

"Hey Choji." Shika greeted, I on the other hand stayed silent.

"Did you do the homework?" The plump one asked. Shika looked at me, I looked back.

"I didn't do it. I'm just a fox." I emphasised the word fox.

"Well you said you would." He grumbled.

"Well you shouldn't believe me." I retorted. We both rolled our eye's at each other.

"Troublesome." Just as the word left his mouth, the Smelly blond girl, and pink girl power walked past us yelling names at each other. The three of us starred after them. "Troublesome." Shika said again, the plump one and I slowly nodded. The bell rang just as we got to the school, but our class appeared to be waiting outside, we joined them, everyone whispering trying to figure out what was happening.

"Kids! Today you will be going on a three day survival trip with one of these here genin. You will be attacked by the sensei's over the three days AND you get no camping equipment." Iruka told us. Huh, we had done these before, but never with attacks or no supplies. This would be fun. I smiled.

"Shin stop smiling you look creepy." The pink one complained as she looked at me. I growled and she flinched away, I chortled out a laugh. Children were so easy to frighten, I mean I'm a fox I'm really not that scary.

"Okay I'm going to call out names, and they will be your group." He started calling out names but I didn't pay attention until I heard Shika's name, though I missed who else was called with him. I followed him to a 15 year old child who wore baggy pants and a mesh shirt. The Naruto kid came to our group as well. Great, he was to loud and energetic for my liking. Even right now he was jittering around in excitment. Our last member was the Hyuga girl, she was good, and quiet. She was blushing bright red and standing awkwardly four feet away. "Okay first group to make it to the check point on the map wins, you can leave once you acquaint with each other."

"Okay My name if Isamu, what your guy's names." I noticed that when he talked he didn't look at Naruto. Rube boy.

"That's Naruto, I'm Shin, Shika, Hinata. Lets go." I said walking towards the exit of the village. They starred after me for a second before scrambling to catch up. "If we run we can have a good five minuet head start on the other groups." I told them picking up the pace. "Rude boy, show me the map." He didn't move.

"He means you." Shika told rude boy. He made an offended noise.

"We have to head North-west once we get out." He says, once we reach the gate he begins running North-East, I stop as I watch him run.

"That's East." Shika and I say together. Naruto bursts out laughing.

"Give me the map." Shika Sighs, the Rude boy smiles sheepishly handing it to him, Shika holds it in front of my face. I sigh.

"Due west for three clicks than we will head northwest for double that tonight." I thought for a second though. "We will take the tree's because we also have to be weary of attacks."

"Isamu, will lead as the leader, Naruto will be second, he will be the distraction and cover so if we get attacked I can use my jutsu. I will be behind him, than Hinata who will be within ear shot so if Shin think's he hears or smells someone she can take a look." Shika quickly hashed out. I nodded.

"Yeah that's what I was going to say." Rude boy said quickly.

"MAN! This is so COOL!" Naruto yelled. As we jumped into the tree's.

"Quiet unless you want to get attacked." I yipped hopping up to a branch, the pack started to move forward. Hinata kept slipping when she would jump, each time I would jump forward to steady her, I looked down at her shoes. "Take off your shoe's and wrap a bandage around the heel and pad's of them." I instructed, she did as I said while the group waited for us on their braches. "Leave them here I'll get them for you later." I told her. We started going this time the shy little girl was much more steady.

It was nearly night fall and their pace was unbearably slow, I sniffed around. "We can stop here." I called out to them. We were still in the lead, and the people closest behind us stopped ten minuets ago. They all laid down on the ground sucking in air. "Start a fire I'm going to go hunt." I ran through he bushes, I had caught the trail of two rabbits a while ago, it took a few minuets to pick up the trail again. I caught the first rabbit in my mouth killing it quickly than leaving it as I chased the other, it took ten paces to get the jump on it before I caught it between my teeth. I retraced my steps to the dead rabbit, than brought them both back to our camp.

"YEAH! Good job Shin." Naruto cheered, I growled at him and he clamped a hand across his mouth. "Oh right. Sorry." The rude boy was still trying to start a fire using two rocks. Stupid child. I gathered chakra and blew a small flame into the kindling. The genin looked at it for a second then to me. I tossed one of the rabbits at him.

"Skin and cook." I told him. He looked repulsed for a second before taking out a Kunai.

"Come on lets go gather berries." Shika said to the other two children, probably so I could eat my own dinner without them being grossed out. I ripped the flesh off of the neck of the rabbit.

"Gross can you do that somewhere else?" Rude boy asked. I ignored him. Useless leader. Naruto came bounding through the bushes.

"Look Shin! I found a big bush of berries!" He showed me a bunch of smooth black berries laying in the fabric of his shirt. I eyed them.

"I hope you didn't eat any." I said taking another bite of my dinner."

"I had a bunch, they taste a bit bitter but they aren't that bad." He said still sounding proud.

"Well they are poisonous so that's unfortunate." I told him blandly, he dropped the edges of his shirt the berries falling as he turned a hue of green. He grasped his throat.

"Give it to me straight Shin how long do I have." He fell to his knee's dramatically. I chortled at the strange boy.

"They wont kill you, just force yourself to puke before they upset your stomach." He stuck his finger down his throat, I quickly grabbed my dinner and jumped away. "Go somewhere else and do it!" disgusting child. The blond smiled sheepishly and walked back to the bushes just as Shika and Hinata came back.

"I found some edible root's" Hinata said softly taking said roots out of her pockets.

"I didn't find anything." Shika said sitting down and leaning against a rock. I eyed the boy.

"You didn't even look." He just shrugged lacing his hands together behind his head.

"Hey Isamu, how did you plan to cook that." He asked the Genin who was still trying to skin the rabbit, he looked up at Shika with wide eye's. I chortled and continued eating. Shika grumbled and walked over to the boy. "I'll finish the rabbit, you go find two long sticks with a prong at the end, and another long stick to put through thee rabbit." Rude boy handed the rabbit to Shika and disappeared into the bush.

"Three due north." I said quietly.

"I see them." Hinata replied. Naruto appeared a second before they attacked, they jumped out of the bush dressed completely in black, they waited a few beats before attacking us. Naruto jumped into action, though wasn't very effective against the sensei, but he did act as a good distraction for Shika to catch him in his shadow, I jumped at him placing my teeth around his neck lightly squeezing and he 'died'. The four of us stood beside each other, facing off against the two 'attackers.'

"Where is that stupid genin, okay Hinata take the one across from you, we will take the other one." Shika said quietly.

"A-Alone" she squeaked.

"You are the strongest here, you can do it." I said to her, She gasped and blushed but nodded. "GO!" I jumped at the one we were supposed to take, biting his ankle then darting away. Naruto screamed than attacked him, but he easily flipped him away. I gathered Chakra spitting fire at the man, he dodged and backed up connecting his and Shika's shadows. Naruto held a Kunai to his throat. The sensei chuckled in defeat, we turned just in time to see Hinata land three devastating blows to her opponent. I smiled as he fell and put his hands up, but the hard look remained on her face, only leaving once the three of them lifted their masks, the one we had just taken out was Iruka.

"Good job guys, but where is your genin?" He asked, I motioned to the bushes before returning to my dinner. "well we have to go, but you guys did great, excellent teamwork." the three of them jumped off. Shika sat back down and tending to their dinner again.

"Troublesome." He muttered.

"Guy's we were AWESOME!" Naruto exclaimed pumping a fist into the air.

"I didn't even know I could do that." Hinata whispered so low I was probably the only one who heard.

"I knew you could." I told her. She blushed bright red before continuing to wash off the roots. "I'm going to sleep while you eat, than wake me up before you guys go to bed and I'll keep watch for the night." I said loudly so they would all hear.

"B-but Shin-san you will only get a few hours of s-sleep." Hinata exclaimed.

"He doesn't need much sleep." Shika answered.

"Oh." She replied softly.

.

.

"Let's get going, the group behind us just woke up, and will probably be leaving within the next fifteen to twenty minuets." I said to the humans. Today was the third day and we only had a two miles to the check point.

"How can you tell?" Naruto asked me.

"They all peed." I said monotone. He made a grossed out face.

"Lets use the road today, we can move faster, and we know we can deal with the Sensei's easily." Shika suggested.

"There is a river about a mile away from us." I reported as we started moving.

"How did you that?" Naruto asked. I tried not to be annoyed with the odd boy.

"I can smell it." He nodded and continued running. "Speed up!" I yelled, they looked back at me. "There is a group of Sensei's but if we speed up they will intercept the group behind us instead of us."

"NO LETS TAKE THEM!" Naruto yelled. Than came to a halting stop. I grumbled.

"Yeah, with me with you guys it will be easy!" the rude boy said stopping as well. Of course they wouldn't listen, stupid children.

"We have about a minuet before they get here." Hinata confirmed. I grumbled, They should have listened to me, now we were going to loose our lead. Three sensei came into view.

"We're going to take you down!" Yelled Naruto, Hinata dropped into fighting stance and Shikamaru pooled his shadow around his feet. The sensei came at us, Rude boy took one.

"Hinata and I will take this one." I said blandly jumping at the one who came towards us, I bit his ankle than swung behind him as Hinata began her gentle fist attack, but the Sensei dodged every one. I built up some chakra spitting little fireballs near his feet. He slowed down, having to dodge attacks from both sides usually does that, I spun around on my front paws and slammed my back ones into the back of his knee's making them give out. Hinata hit both of his arms before he could recover and I wrapped my teeth around his neck. Gross what an awful taste. He slumped faking dead. The other fight were not going well, the genin was getting his ass handed to him, and I'm not entirely sure what Naruto was doing, it was like he was attacking without a plan, while Shika tried to get his shadow to his opponent. I looked up at Hinata and she nodded, than went to help the genin while I went to help the other two. I clamped down on the back of the sensei's foot tripping him, since he was reversing. Naruto jumped on him punching him hard in the face.

"Shadow possession complete." I lightly bit the sensei's neck and he 'died' just as Hinata and the Genin finished up. "Okay lets get going." Shikamaru said.

"we only have a few minuets on the group behind us, we need to be fast." I instructed as we headed out, this time with me in the lead, we reached the river which I leisurely walked across, while the others had to swim across. Once the finally all reached the other side the other group had made it to the river. The depressed Uchiha, blond smelly girl and bug guy and some Genin, who looked far more useful than ours. "Run!" I yelled. We took off as fast as we could, we had maybe a mile until the check point. I looked back at them, their genin could walk on water, he grabbed their hands and pulled them along in the water, they made it across in thirty seconds. Why did we have to get the useless genin? There was a good distance between us and I was confident we could stay ahead until the end. That is until our genin face planted.

"Keep running he will catch up." I growled.

"I think he is hurt." Hinata said stopping, the others did the same.

"Throw him in the river?" I suggested.

"We can leave a teammate behind!" The other group passed us as they peeled our genin off the ground.

"Is he unconscious?" Shika asked, I looked back over and sure enough he was, Hinata and Naruto supported him between each other, but he was definitely not awake. "Now we will have to walk to the finish line." Shika complained. "troublesome, all that work to be first, and we wont even be third." troublesome indeed I agreed as two groups flew passed us.

.

.

"What's wrong with Shin?" The Nara mother asked while they ate dinner.

"He is sulking." Shika said in a bored tone. I wasn't sulking! "They stuck us with a dead weight genin and he is convinced it's some controversy." it was, they stuck us with him so we would fail! Okay I might be sulking a bit.

"Dead weight how?" Shikaku asked, but I answered before Shika.

"He didn't know how to start a fire, or read a map, his fighting skills were about as good as Naruto's, he apparently can't run a think without knocking himself out! I'm also pretty sure he hid in the bushes during our first fight." Shika nodded at each one of these points, in a confirming way.

"He just need's more training, like you two! Back yard now!" Shika looked down at his plate which still had food, but the women didn't seem to care just pointed to the back door. We both sulked to the back yard.

"Troublesome. We just got back from a three whole day survival exercise you think she would cut us some slack." He sighed stretching.

"Well she thinks we suck since our team came in sixth." I growled.

What? Fox's hated to loose. Or maybe that was just me.

* * *

Hello guys, hope you are still tuned in! next chapter Shins personality begins to change. I wont give to much away, but stay tuned!

~Snowwy**


	5. Chapter 5-A Fox is Now Human?

Graduation day was pretty boring for me, in the morning there was a written test, so I just sat beside Shika doing nothing, but watching the orange clad boy shake and quiver an sweat as he tried to answer all the questions, which admittedly brought me allot of joy. Than after lunch it was the taijutsu and ninjutsu testing which again I couldn't join, so I really don't see why Shika made me come today, in fact he was going to get a big juicy mouse on his bed for this. Right now Shika was doing his ninjutsu test while I waited for him to come out with his head band. Honestly I don't know why the Nara female was nervous, Shika could do everything that he needed to pass when he was seven. And I really don't know why I had to train with him since I didn't need to do anything.

Hmm

Do I always complain this much. The orange boy ran through the hallways, he smelt ...sad. Did he not pass, he seemed rather competent to me, well except his clone jutsu, but any ninja worth his hitai-ate could tell that was because he was putting out to much chakra and overloading the jutsu. Should I go talk to him? Probably. Am I going to? ...ugh. I guess. I stood up from the spot I had been laying. Hopefully Shika didn't get back before me, though he probably wouldn't care much about my absence, but than he would go home, and if I wasn't there he would go looking for me, and if I got home and he wasn't there then I would go looking for him, and that just sounded far to troublesome. Naruto was on the lone swing on the tree across from the academy entrance, looking miserable, well, he certainly didn't pass.

"Orange boy!" I cackled to him. He looked up, there were tears threatening to slip from his eyes. "How you doing kit?" I realise technically I was his age, but I felt much much older then these children.

"I Don't want to talk right now." He mumbled.

"I understand, so you listen, and I'll talk." he didn't oppose to this. "I think you will make a great shinobi, I mean your are way better than that stupid genin we got stuck with for our survival thing. The reason why your clones suck is because it's to weak for the amount of chakra you put out. Now that's all I have to say." I turned to head back to class when he spoke up behind me.

"Do you think if I can get a good clone out tonight Iruka will let me pass!?" He asked excitedly, I laughed.

"I think so." I don't really know if he would, but I was hoping. "Good luck Orange boy." I walked back inside only to hear;

"MY NAME IS NARUTO NOT ORANGE BOY" as the door closed. I laughed again. I really didn't understand why people hated that child so much, he had allot of strange smelling chakra sure, but I don't think humans can smell chakra, so that can't be why. He was loud and annoying, but so was Kiba and no one seemed to hate, or throw rocks at him. He smelt a little funny, but so did Choji, so that couldn't explain it. The only thing left was maybe the fact that he was an orphan but so was that Sasuke child, and everyone seemed to think the sun shone out of his ass, so I was at a loss. By the time I got back to the class Shika was already at his desk with his head down holding his Hitai-ate.

"So you passed." I stated.

"It was troublesome, but yes." By troublesome, he didn't mean hard, just that it was boring.

"So we can go home."

"No we have to wait till class is dismissed." I grumbled a few words that weren't appropriate for children then laid back down at his feet. Slowly but surely the class filled with excited children. Poor guys, they didn't know that most of them would fail the real test of becoming genin. But who was I to burst their bubbles. That Sasuke came in and I covered my ears for the upcoming assault of squeals, though the smelly blond, and pink haired girls screams could still be heard. There was many different reasons that I was excited Shika's time at the academy were over, some of those being, less dull days of sitting in class learning thing I had already taught myself, not having so many weird children around and that damn dog that kept challenging me, but the thing I was most excited about leaving behind was the stupid squealing that would go down every time he entered a room, or the constant 'Sasuke-kun is so cute, oh my goodness Sasuke-kun looked at me, Sasuke-kun is so mysterious' most of these girls hadn't even reached puberty yet, so in my opinion they shouldn't even be caring about these sorts of thing. Plus added to that, that Sasuke was a total weirdo. If they had to be obsessed about someone it should be Choji, he was a stand up guy, caring compassionate, attentive. Perfect boyfriend material. Hell even Shika was better boyfriend material them Sasuke, Sasuke was a depressed egotistical boy. His condition would only worsen as he grew.

"How much longer do you suppose this will take?" I asked Shika.

"I don't know, about an hour?" I suppressed an onslaught of bad words. I sat up from my laying position and began to meditate. I had been working on a bunch of seals, along with the one that was permanate that made me talk, I also made my own sage jutsu explosion seal, and a seal that would cause the earth to soften and drag you in, and one that would then harden the ground to rap you in. I had gotten to the point of not needing to draw them, and all I had to do was place my hand down on any surface and the seal would activate there. The sage explosion had a timer, since I didn't feel like being a suicide bomber. Secretly I had been working on one to make me human. It's not that my humans would be mad or anything. It's more that I felt embarrassed. A fox longing to be a real boy. Please. This story didn't start with once upon a time, and a cricket as a conscious. Seals were tricky, if I did this one wrong, I could end up ripping of a limb, and for some reason I was rather attached to all of mine. It would be easier if I could just consult a seals expert, but I was the closest thing Konoha had to one now adays. The male Nara told me that Jiraya the legendary Sanin was a seals expert but he was hardly eve in town so that didn't really help me. Though the old man did try to help me with my seals, pointing out the most logical answers but with seals, the most logical things were hardly the answer. I mentally drew up the seal, I was so close to getting the seal right I could almost taste it, though something was still off. Wait! What if I was just miscalculating the amount of chakra needed, the same way they orange boy does with his clones! What if the reason it self destructs is because I'm putting far to much chakra in!

"Mother of all that is good and holy I've got it!" I exclaimed, jumping up scaring Shika and a few other kids around me.

"That seal you've been working on?" Shika asked once he recovered.

"Yes. I have to go, I'll see you at home." I said rushing out of the room, hearing him mumble troublesome as I left. I ran straight out of the village into the forest in hunt of a bunny to test it on before I used the seal on myself, just in-case I was way off on the idea that it was a chakra problem and not a physical problem with my seal. I found myself a rabbit in no time being careful to have a good grip on it's neck but not kill it. I ran it back to the Nara house as fast as I could channeling chakra into my legs. My animal instinct didn't like having a live rabbit in my mouth, they kept screaming at me to kill it, but I was rather used to ignoring said instinct, or many other humans would be dead, including that Sasuke kid. Once in the back yard I put the rabbit down careful to hold it down with my paws so it didn't run away, it took a few moments of concentration, before I activated the seal, carefully putting in enough Chakra. In a large puff of smoke a naked male human appeared under me. He looked very human except for his bunny ears, but I could deal with fox ears. Though I couldn't deal with this bunny looking at me like that. I brought my teeth to his neck sharply biting into it, killing the creature. As it stopped struggling there was a high pitched scream.

"OH MY GOD! BAD FOXX BAD FOX! WHAT DID YOU DO OH MY GO! OH MY-wait it was a bunny?" The Nara female was in hysterics, than instantly calm when she saw the dead bunny.

"Yeah It was a rabbit, just a seal I have been working on. I didn't realise you were home. I would have warned you." I said sheepishly standing over the rabbit. Even though I was very human in most ways, some animalistic things still shone through, like while I hunt, or right now, someone was close to my catch, and I felt the need to defend it, also the tiny need to bite her hand off so she couldn't touch it.

"yes well next time you had best back sure you tell me so I don't think my furry son has killed a human in my back yard!" She scolded coming closer. I growled before I could stop myself. "Oh right sorry, I'll let you eat your food! But after finish up quickly, I want to talk about your new seal!" She clapped excitedly going back inside and closing the door, giving me privacy.

I rock, that seal was flawless, and I was happy that my ears would stay, it would feel like a horrible handicap to not have my hearing. It took ten minuets to finish eating than to discard the remains in the trash. I placed my front paw on my upper back leg activating the seal. There was a puff of smoke, and I was looking down at a human hand and legs. I stood slowly smiling down at my pale human body. My skin was the same flawless white as my fur, white human hair hung in front of my eyes, it was long reaching down to the small of my back. From what I could tell I had a slim muscular frame, and looked to be a bit taller than Shika. I started crying, this was the first time in my whole life, I didn't feel trapped in a body that wasn't my own. I was finally the person I always saw myself as. It felt good. To good to be true. I slowly walked forward, it was strange being on two feet, even weirder when I got to the stairs, but by the time I opened the door, it was no trouble. The Female Nara was in the kitchen humming, she gasped as I entered the room.

"SHIN! Your beautiful!" She exclaimed. "and naked!" oh shit! She was right! I was totally nude. "Here let me get you some of Dad's clothes, you look to big for Shikamaru's." She bustled off as I blushed at my nudeness. Huh I was to big for Shika's clothes? She came back into the room throwing me a black pair of shorts and a t-shirt which I promptly put on. "There now you look perfect." She stated as she pulled my hair into a loose ponytail, a few stand loose in front of my face.

"It doesn't make you uncomfortable?" I asked shyly, sitting cross-legged for the first time on a chair at the table.

"You know I consider you my son, and your whole time with us I couldn't help but feel you were miserable." I looked at her confused, for the first time ever not having to voice my confusion. "well when you would watch us eat at the table, or at restaurants, or when we would have to leave you outside for dinner party's." I looked down at my hands in wonder.

"I didn't think you guys noticed." I told her honestly.

"Well of course we noticed. We are Nara's." She joked. "Honestly, you have never felt like a fox to us, you were a human, a boy, and our son. In fact I'm releaved you figured out a seal to turn yourself human." I looked up at her, my eye's brimming with tears. As a fox I never cried, I would whine, but tears never came out. It felt...nice. "In-fact Shikaku was looking for seals to do the exact same thing in his spar time." he chuckled at my facial expression.

"Probably got sick of vacuuming all the fur up." I joked voice wavering.

"Damn right I am." she joked back slamming her tea cup down. "Your father and brother will be back soon, why don't you go to the bathroom and check yourself out, your a real looker!" I smiled hopping down from the chair gracefully onto my hands and feet. I was about to walk off, when I realised I was a human, who now walked on two feet. I stood up sheepishly smiling at...my mom and walked to the bath room. So this was my first time being in this room. I didn't have any use for it. It's not like I had to use the toilet, or the bath, or even the mirror. I looked into the mirror eye's quickly filling with fresh tears. Yes this was who I am Seishin the human. My skin was pale as snow, I had masculine deep purple eye's with black slited pupils, my facial structure made me look a little foxy and mischievous. My hair was as white as my skin, a few loose strand in the front but the rest of my hair hung in a loose ponytail at the start of my shoulder. Though the most noticeably inhuman part was the two perky fox ears on top my head. I looked a little devoid of colour but overall pretty good, not that it mattered much to me, it just felt amazing to be a human. I looked to be around Shika's age, though I was probably quite a few inches taller, and my shoulders were far more muscular and brood. I lifted up my shirt to reveal strange musculature, because I lived my whole life as a fox my underbelly muscles were never used, so those were far less defined than my pectoral area, which jutted out noticeably even in this baggy shirt, and my hip bones were defined due to larger muscles in that area. That's not to say my abdomen wasn't muscled, you could still see the shadows of them, the same way they were on Shika, they just didn't compare to the rest of my body. The mal- Dad's shirt was a bit to baggy, and far to long, same as the shorts but it was manageable.

"Shin, come on out!" I heard the fe- Mom call to me. I smelt the scent of Shika and dad in the kitchen, and panicked a bit. I small part of me felt like they would find a human me troublesome. I took a deep breath and walked out of the bathroom and towards the kitchen. "Isn't he hansom!" Mom squealed surging towards me and pulling my towards the table to sit. I sat on the chair strangely crouching the way I would sit if I was still a fox. I looked down at the grains of the wood table blushing as I felt the two males and beaming female look at me.

"Looks like you were meant to be a human Shin." Shika said, in a surprisingly excited voice, he always talked so blandly hearing his words so genuinely filled with emotion was reassuring. I looked up and smiled at the boy. "Though I can't tell what age you are, you look like your a year or two older than me, your a tad to tall and buff to be 12." he added thoughtfully starring me down.

"I'd say he is fifteen, how did you get the seal right? I've been working on the same thing since you came to live with us." Dad asked. I starred at the man, then to the women beside me.

"That long?" I asked them.

"I told you, we all never saw you as a fox." Mom said as she stood up to boil water for tea.

"I even asked Tsume if she ever felt that her ninken was actually human in a dog body. She said no, but her companion told us, that he felt that your spirit was not a fox. So we decided to try to make you a seal that would turn you human, though we had no luck." He explained.

"I never saw you as fox, at least not after that game of shogi." Shika added. I cleared my throat and grabbed a piece of paper and pen off the counter and drew out the seal I had used.

"I had almost given up, because I didn't think the formula could get better then this, yet still when I tried in on rabbits it would rip them apart, but today, that Naruto kid failed his ninjutsu exam, so I went to talk to him, he failed because he couldn't make a clone. I would have though the teachers would have noticed by now that the reason his clones never turned out was because he put in to much chakra. Anyhow, I told him to try not to put out as much chakra and that's why his clones were failing. That's when it hit me. The problem with my seal wasn't the formula, but it was the amount of chakra I put in." I looked up at Dad who seemed to be getting everything so far, so I continued. "Basically I had thought this was a big transformation so I would need allot of chakra, but because I poured so much in, it would tear itself apart." I finished. Everyone nodded obviously understanding.

"But wont the transformation quickly run out?" Shika asked.

"Well no, I had written in a self sustaining layer to this seal, so basically after the initial charge of the transformation, it will just keep reusing the chakra I first put in. Which is possible, because my chakra isn't like yours, I use nature chakra, and sage art."

"We figured as much." Dad said placing down my drawing of the seal. "Well we should get you some clothes that actually fit." He said eyeing his shirt and shorts which I wore. "And then we have to go see the hokage."

"Why does he have to see the hokage?" Shika asked the question I was about to ask.

"Well, if shin wants to be a ninja, I don't know if the hokage will let him continue to hang around with you as though he was or ninken or if he will be placed on his own team." I panicked, wait what?

"I'd rather change back into a fox than be placed elsewhere from Shika." I could tell the boy was thinking the same thing, but not wanting to say it in fear of sounding selfish.

"That's why we need to go talk to the hokage." Dad said.

"But we definitely need to take him shopping, he can't very well go dressed like that." Mom exclaimed pinching the fabric of the shirt I wore. She placed tea cups in front of everyone including me, I sipped the liquid carefully, it felt hot, but I ate fresh meat and this was only ten or so degrees hotter than that so it was manageable. It was strange drinking out of a cup, I had to remind myself not to lap the liquid but to sip. It tasted great. I was so used to flesh, and water being the only things I ate that something different was good. I looked up from the glass to see everyone watching.

"This feels right." Shika said sighing happily drinking his own tea.

Yea, this did feel right.

.

.

I changed into my new clothes in the store changing room, I wore simple back combat pants bandaged down to my shins, shoes didn't feel right so i simply bandaged my feet as well. I wore a simple black long sleeved shirt, though it was a tad tight around my pectorals but the next size up just looked goofy. I had a thigh kunai pouch, and weapons belt around my waist. Though since I lived my whole existence as a fox I had never learnt to wield a kunai, so that was something I would have to practise. Straight from the clothing shop the four of us headed to the hokage tower, we got a bunch of weird looks, though that was understandable, the general populous was used to seeing the Nara family with a white fox, not an albino boy with fox ears and purple eye's. There was a bunch of whispers, which I made a point to ignore. We were let in to see the hokage immediately, but again that was to be expected since Shikaku was his advisor.

"Good evening Shikaku, who is this?" the old man asked sitting cross-legged at a low desk. The glint in his eyes told me he knew exactly who I was.

"This is Seishin, my sons Fox, though today he learnt how to make a seal that would transform him into a human." dad told the old man. He was smoking and it took all my effort not to break into a coughing fit, since I still had my strong sense of smell.

"Well hello Seishin, I have heard much about you." He said smiling. "You appear to be quite the seals expert."

"I had allot of time on my hands." I replied, the man chuckled.

"Well as I hear it, the Nara family thinks that you were supposed to be a human, so it's not a surprise you came up with this seal." He said taking another puff of his pipe. "Is it easily dispelled?" He asked me.

"Well it is a self sufficient seal, so the only way it would be dispelled is if I dispelled it, or I died. Or I suppose if my chakra flow was stopped." I added.

"What if you run out of chakra?"

"Well I use nature energy, so I don't run out of chakra." I told him.

"So your like a summon but without a time limit." He said in a hushed voice. "And now without the limitations of being a fox, you would make an excellent shinobi if that what you chose." I could see what he meant, I never ran out of chakra, the only things that could stop me in battle, were normal bodily exhaustion, or being wounded, but even then, sage art made it so my healed rather fast. This would have been a major asset as just a fox, but being a human made me seem laughably powerful.

"I would like that, but I would rather be a fox then get separated from Shikamaru." I informed the hokage, who just beamed back at me.

"Well of course, your ability to change into a fox would suit his team well." the four of us all let out a nervous breath Shika and I giving each other happy glances before looking back to the hokage. "Well then you will join Shika in three days for team assignments, and here is your own hitai-ate." He said handing me a black banded forehead protector, I took it from his hands bowing deeply to the man.

"Thank you lord hokage." I said before turning to walk out with the rest of my family.

"One last thing shin. Are you the small white fox that landed on my desk several years ago?" He asked. I had long since recovered the memory of appearing at his desk confused. I smiled to the old man.

"Yes that was me, though next time a fox end up on your desk, don't bring him to the Inuzuka's, that place is hell on earth for a fox." I joked.

"Dully noted." I heard his gravely reply as we walked out of his office.

.

.

Choji, had taken it fairly well as the three of us met up to walk to school together, apparently he and Shika had agreed long ago that I should be human, instead of a fox. Though he did ask to touch my ears, which I promptly shut down. His hands were full of salt and grease from his bag of potato chips, thanks but no thanks.

"I bet this is a really nerve wracking day for everybody, no one but us know who they are going to be on a team with." Choji said as we neared the academy.

"yeah must be a drag." Shikamaru agreed lacing his hands together behind his head.

"I bet Ino still hopes Sasuke will end up on her team." I grimaced at the idea of being stuck with her for a good portion of our lives. The other two boys agreed. We entered the class and Choji went to sit in his usual assigned seat, while Shika and I went to his, we both realised that I couldn't very well sit on the floor next to his feet like usual so he pushed one seat over directly behind the weird Uchiha child and I sat in his normal seat. Most of the class turned to look at us beginning to whisper amongst each other, which I again let fall into white noise, not caring to hear what they were saying. I smelt the orange boy long before he came into the academy, I looked expectantly towards the door. he charged in forehead protector on. Good. He passed. I beamed at the boy, who didn't really seem to notice me.

"Man this is so cool we are going to be real ninja! See this!" He exclaimed loudly pointing at his Hitai-ate which covered his forehead same as mine, everybody looked at him, well save for Sasuke who just continued his glaring at nothing.

"It doesn't count if you stole it." Shika said lazily. Naruto made a distressed noise.

"IRUKA SENSEI PASSED ME HIMSELF! BELIEVE IT!" He yelled pointing at himself. I couldn't wait till the child grew out of his 'believe it' phase, because each time he said it I felt the urge to clamp my teeth around his neck. Just as the boy was settling down again and sitting in the spot in front of me the door slammed open and to girls popped through. As the bubble gum haired girl, and the smelly one.

"GAH! I WON!"

"WHAT ARE YOU BLIND! My toe was in the door before yours a whole centimeter before yours!"

"Tuff luck Ino-pig! I was here first so I get to sit beside Sasuke-kun!" She stalked down to where Sasuke-kun was sitting.

"hi Sakura-chan loo-" Naruto tried to talk to said girl but she promptly threw him out of the way. I tuned them all out not caring to listen to the fan girls arguing. That is, until Naruto was crouched inches from Sasuke's face making the raven hilariously uncomfortable.

"I don't see what's so special about him, I think that guy is much better looking." He said pointing to me. Perhaps if I was not subject to the stares from the hordes of fangirls I would have found the synchronization of their eye's hilarious. But I was the subject and I did feel uncomfortable. I looked towards Shika for help, who just smiled clearly enjoying this. Thank fully something distracted the girls, not so thankfully it was Naruto and Sasuke kissing. Okay I take that back it was freaking hilarious! Thank you whatever gods were out there! Watching the Uchiha in that much discomfort was probably the highlight of my life. I burst out laughing as the two boys began gaging.

"oh god! That was probably the funniest thing I've ever seen!" I smacked my hand on the table in my laughing fit a few other guys joining my laugher, it slowly spread around the class what had happened and soon the room was roaring with laughter. Well except for the fangirls that is, though I did hear Hinata giggling a bit from her normal spot. I knew she had stars in her eyes for Naruto, but she could accept a funny mistake for what it was; funny.

"Hey just who the hell do you think you are laughing at Sasuke-kun!" Sakura yelled at me, a few other made comments like her but less loud.

"I think your Sasuke-kun should get off his high horse and admit how hilarious it is, and so should you." I replied wiping a few tears from my laughter away as a bunch of guys in the class made "oooohhhh' noises. Sasuke himself stood up and turned around glaring at me.

"Yeah you tell him Sasuke!" A few people from his posy. "Just because he is way dreamier, and muscular and taller than you doesn't mean he is better than you." Another girl yelled, quickly followed by a; "Who's team are you on?"

"What did you say new kid?" He asked.

"Was that supposed to me intimidating? I mean A for effort and all but I think you should try going thee octaves deeper and maybe throw in a threat. What do you think Shika?" I asked looking towards Shika with a mischievous smile.

"don't get me involved." He said putting his head down on the desk. "But yeah that might be a good start." I smiled.

"Give it a go!" I encouraged the now furious Uchiha.

"how about this? Shut your big fat mouth or I'll beat your face in." He growled. I mulled it over.

"It would be okay, a good first try, but your threat kind of looses meaning when your clearly so much weaker than me." Man did I like pushing his buttons.

"Oh yeah! Lets test that theory." He clenched his fists. Ready to pounce. I extended one finger towards him signalling for him to wait.

"Tsk tsk, we are about to be ninja, show some responsibility, class is about to start." Just as I finished my sentence Iruka walked in, I winked at the raven haired boy as he turned to take his seat.


	6. Chapter 6-A Fox and all His Faults

There are many faults about my self I accept like; I enjoy eating flesh, or when someone comes close to me I almost always want to kill them, I'm incredibly lazy when it comes to every day mundane things, I cry while reading sad books, bald people freak me out, I hate getting touched, every times someone touches me I get the urge to like myself clean of their touch, or every time the mailman comes to our house I feel the intense urge to chase him like a common dog.

Many, many faults I will openly tell people.

What I won't tell people is that I am pretty sure if I fought the Uchiha kit as a human I would loose. This body was new to me, it felt weird too fight with a kunai in my hand, it was weird not being on four legs, and I couldn't throw worth shit.

So I was a tad nervous standing across from the Uchiha in the school yard. Did I let that show?

Hell no. I was a fox, we had pride issues when it came to our fighting abilities. It was a problem.

"Don't expect me to hold back kid." I cackled at him. He starred back at me his dark eye's analyzing me, I had an upper hand of knowing his fighting style, how he thought in a fight, his normal attack sequences. But my poor confidence of this body made that advantage useless. The guys mostly cheered for me, the girls seemed conflicted between me and 'their Sasuke-kun.' I crouched down low finger tips touching the gravel under my feet. First he will throw kunai, I will dodge, if I go right he will attack with a series of kicks, left he will punch me twice then round house kick, flip onto his hands and kick several more times, flip back, loose more weapons in my direction, then advance with more taijutsu. If I have yet to be defeated he will use his jutsu.

So I will do the exact opposite of what he thinks I will do.

He threw the kunai, instead of dodging right or left I blocked them with my own, charging towards him, he braced for an attack. I pivoted my foot till I was on his three, He turned quickly to my direction . I feigned a punch to his face which he moved to block, I quickly punched his exposed stomach then flipped backwards.

As a fox I would have bit his neck, but as a human that may be weird. I quickly channelled chakra into my limbs for my next attack. He came at me angrily and fast, I surged forward with new speed, I grabbed a hold of his out stretched wrist, spinning my own body so my back was to his body and flipped him over me slamming him to the ground. I held tight to his wrist palming a kunai positioning it over his throat.

"I win." I said smirking. I wish I had a picture of his face right now. Priceless. His raven hair was tossled and his usual scowling his face looked bewildered. I pulled the kit to his feet. "Don't take it to bad, I shouldn't have accepted your challenge since I'm more advanced." I admitted. I honestly thought I would have lost. "Besides, I'm a strategist, I predicted every move you could have made and every counter I could make to each move, this battle could have gone several hundred different ways, I just was able to deduce the best outcomes for me." OKKKAAAYYY I felt shitty now, this was all pretty excessive, I knew theoretically I was better then him, I just wanted to test.

What? I'm not heartless. Lazy- but not heartless.

"Hn." His pale face was back in his normal scowl and I suddenly no longer felt bad. _**Kill him**_. What no. _**You must**_. No go away animal instinct I can't kill everyone. The Uchiha turned on his heel and stalked away. The group of onlookers were cheering. I just smirked and bowed making my way to Choji, Shika, and Ino. My team. I kept walking past them ignoring the rest of the classes compliments.

"That was so cool!" Ino gushed as we walked out of the school yard to find a place to eat. "I mean I don't like that you hurt my Sasuke-kun but it was still cool." She added. I refrained from biting into her jugular.

"Shin lets eat here, I'm tired of walking." I nodded looking to the roof top Shika pointed too.

"Wait Shin!? As in your fox!?" Ino exclaimed, the three of us nodded then jumped into the roof leaving a baffled Ino behind.

.

.

"I can't believe I'm on a team with you three losers!" Ino huffed eating her very small lunch. Not good she needed food or she would be weak. My lunch consisted of a slab of meat, sadly it was cooked. None of us paid the loud girl much attention. She had been yelling about me being a fox, and that an animal had no business being so attractive. When I pointed out the very noticeable ears on top my head, a clear indication I was not human, she didn't seem to care. She moved on to commenting about how much Choji ate, then mine and Shika's lack of drive.

Excuse you, we are both driven when it comes to interesting things. Hence why we were ignoring her. Now she was raving about how much of an injustice it was for us to be her team mates when she clearly should have been with her Sasuke-kun.

Clearly.

"You guys have to let me be the leader, or else our team is going to tank!" pfft your bossy but not a leader. No one commented though. Well I'm pretty sure Shika was mumbling how troublesome this all was. We were all suddeny sidetracked by a blond haired orange clad kit sneaking across the roof opposite of us, that was when I first noticed the Uchiha sitting in the window eating his lunch. Naruto tackled the Raven haired boy, the ruckus could be heard from where we sat.

"What does he think he is doing to MY Sasuke-kun?" Ino yelled. Sasuke hopped out of the window no Naruto in sight. "of course Sasuke beat him." Ino announced proudly. I smirked to myself as Naruto's scent slowly moved away but Sasuke's stayed. Got beat twice today, his poor pride must be hurting.

.

.

"I hate cats."

"Shin it's the mission we are on, suck it up." Asuma said.

"I hate many things in this world. The things I hate most are cats."

"Shin it's troublesome but we have too." Shika stated in a bored tone.

"I hate cats."

"Shin stop whining and track the damn cat." Ino said angrily thrusting a bow that was apparently the cats we were looking for.

"They smell like hell fire." I defiantly crossed my arms in front of my chest. Ino's vein on her forehead began to bulge in frustration. I was a completely chill person, I helped on every mission, no complaints. But this was to far. Suddenly I was jumped by the small blond girl.

"SMELL IT!" She yelled thrusting the bow to my nose. I gaged, both from the smell of the cat and her overpowering scent. Was she wearing god damn perfume! I told her that makes me sick.

"Get off of my you hellion! You reek! I can't even smell the stink of the cat over your scent!" I began trying to detach her from my body by grasping the sides of her waist and trying to yank her off. She had a surprisingly good grip.

"STOP SAYING I SMELL BAD! I SMELL FINE!" The bow was practically up my nostrils by now.

"I SMELT IT ALREADY GET OF YOU BLOND DEMON!" I screamed. She smiled and detached her limbs hopping away from me. I fell to my knee's holding my nose. Dear god it hurt.

"Shin you okay there buddy?" Asuma asked placing his large smelly hand on me.

"No I'm really not." I let go of my nose and sniffed the air. Just great. From her perfume and the cats bow shoved up my nose I could hardly smell a thing over it, except from Asuma's smoke smelling hand. The scent was stuck in my nose now, I couldn't even track the cat. I sniffed the air again. I couldn't even smell Shika next to me. "I can't help on this mission anymore." I sighed reaching for my water bottle trying to wash the blonds scent off my hands and face.

"What do you mean you can't help!" Ino yelled. God damn it why can't she be like Shika and Choji who were perfectly chill and didn't feel the need to scream everything.

"I mean." I glared at her icily. "you shoved that bow up my nose, plus your own overpowering scent, and now I can't smell a thing except for those two horrible things." She sweat dropped. "I could smell the bow when it was in your hand you didn't need to thrust it up my nose. Now I have a head ache and you have to do this the old fashioned way." I stood up dusting myself off. I didn't bother mentioning I had already found the cats scent before.

"Yeah but you already found the cat so it's fine." Shika stated. "Show us the way." ugh stupid boy, somehow he knew I already pinpointed the cats location.

.

"Hey! Tora! It's me again." I called out as we stealthily approached. Shikamaru face palmed.

"Seishin?" a catty voice called back.

"Yeah." the fat cat came out of hiding.

"Stupid fox, I thought you said you would never come within 30 metres of me." She said rolling around on her back and stretching.

"I didn't want to. It's a mission you understand right?" My eyebrow twitched talking to the little shit so nicely.

"Only if you rub my belly." She began to purr and shimmy.

"You can talk to her? What is she doing?" Ino asked.

"Trying to seduce me." I stated plainly. "Tora listen, your a cat I'm a fox, it just wont work out." She began walking towards me twirling around my feet shivering in disgust. I fucking hate cats.

"You shiver from my touch." She said seductively. Ew gross.

"I shiver in disgust. Now come Tora." I started walking my team with the damn cat following.

"I like it when you play hard to get. Just admit you want a piece of this" she batted me with her paw. I just puked in my mouth.

"I am not playing hard to get I very seriously do not want you. I certainly do not want a piece of anything you have to give." I glared at my team as they all snickered. I hate cats.

The walk through town was unbearable, my team laughed at me well I attempted to fend of the romantic interests of the cat. I thought teams were supposed to care about you.. Apparently I was sorely mistaken, because they rather enjoyed my predicament.

Even Shika.

Damn traitor.

To say I was relieved to see that smelly women crushing the life out of Tora would be an understatement. I walked several feet behind the team, glares at the back of their heads.

"Shin, enough with the killer intent." Asuma chuckled.

"I'll stop when my head ache goes away." I grumble back.

"Lets go do some training." Asuma suggested causing the whole group to grumble, though I was grumbling for unrelated reasons.

.

.

"Shin I don't think your aiming." Asuma told me flatly starring at my kunai which had sailed passed the target completely.

"I was a fox last week, throwing is still foreign to me." I grumbled back.

"Try again, this time aim." I shot the large man a glare before taking out another kunai from my pouch, I held it the way I had been instructed, I closed one eye because that what I had seen Shika do when he had been learning. I threw the kunai, this time it landed on the target...out of the circle, but still into the wood.

Yay!

"I said aim." Asuma complained exasperated.

"I did, look I got closer then ever." I argued back.

"Go get you knifes and keep practicing." sheesh a little encouragement would be nice. Slave driver. But I did as instructed grabbed my knifes and continued to throw them.

I didn't find this fun, I would rather be sparing like the other three, or maybe working on seals. I didn't feel a need to learn throwing, it sucked. But if I didn't learn, the Nara women -my Mother- would skin me and use me as a fur rug.

Though now I didn't have fur...it would kind of be a little creepy if she used me as a rug now...people would think she was a psycho.

Oh hey look I hit the middle. I looked at the target and sure enough three Kunai were dug into the red circle of the target.

"Way to go Shin!" Ino exclaimed behind me.

"There you go, all you had to do was aim." Asuma said happily.

"Actually I didn't aim, I was zoned out." I told him lazily putting my hand in my pockets and shrugging. Ino visibly deflated.

"So uncool." she muttered.

"Troublsome." Shikamaru agreed.

"It's still cool!" Choji encouraged.

"You still hit it, and three times in a row, so lets go get some barbeque, on me this time!" Asuma exclaimed.

.

.

I sat waiting for the food to arrive, Choji across from me with Shika beside me. I tried to ignore the stares from the others in the restaurant.

"Why are they staring at us?" I whispered to the others. They all looked as uncomfortable with the attention, save for Ino who seemed to be eating it up.

"They aren't starring at us, they are starring at you." Ino informed. We all sweat dropped and looked over at her.

"What why me?" I whispered back. Her eye brow twitched and she pointed an angry finger at me.

"Because you are a class A cutie! And they are dazzled by mine and your beauty!" She hollered. I looked at her unimpressed. Yeah sure, and Choji will grow up to be a swimsuit model. "Your right up there with Sasuke now, you even have a fan club." She pulled out a pamphlet, that suspiciously looked like it was made with crayons. "They are called the Shin Shines! Get it because it sounds like sun shine. Anyway, they asked me to join, but I declined, I'm a die hard Sasuke fangirl." She flicked her hair back pocketing the pamphlet.

"That's for sure." We all muttered. I looked at the girls watching me one burnet who was probably three years older then me turned beat red when our eye's met.

"They know I'm a fox right?" I asked. That's like...bestiality...

"Yeah but your human now so it's fine." She waved her hand around dismissively. Still pretty sure that's cross species and very very wrong. Suddenly the three other guys began laughing so hard tears came to their eye's.

"Hey! Shut up!" I hollered at them.

"THE SHIN SHINES!" They cried laughing harder. I began to sink in to my seat letting off killer intent. I hate these humans.

They had finally calmed down by the time food came, but I was still bruiting, though that seemed to excite the onlookers more, in fact their numbers tripled. I forked raw meat onto my plate and began to eat the strip of my plate.

"SHIN IS SO MANLY!" A bunch of girls shouted.

This is just ridicules. I mean in human years I'm what...seven years old? Even though I look fifteen- sixteen, the number of years I've existed in this world are only seven...this was bestiality and pedophilia.

"Hey you! Shin!" A boys voice called out, it sounded familiar, all angry and depressed...oh it was that grumpy kid from Shika's class. I turn to the voice where a very determined Sasuke is standing a few

feet from our table hands in his pockets trying to look cool. "Fight me!" He smirked at me.

"AH! Sasuke-kun!" Ino squealed jumping over Choji and attached her self to his arm, though the emo kid paid no attention. I gave Sasuke a bland look, I just ate a bunch of meat, and after foxes eat we need to clean ourselves then nap, I am in no mood to fight the little guy.

"No." Sasuke's eye's narrow at my refusal and the crowd of onlooker gasp.

"Are you scared?" The Uchiha attempted to taunt. I got up seemingly walking towards him, as I got in front of him I stopped.

"Naw, just don't have the energy to play ninja with you, maybe next time?" it was my turn to smirk as I strolled out of the restaurant. My team caught up right away, we all walked silently for a few blocks before I couldn't hold it in strolling to a near by tree and leaning against it and laughing.

"Oh god did you see his face!" I managed to exclaim through laughs. Shika and Choji had joined in, and I could hear the little giggles from Ino.

"He just stood in the middle of the restaurant!" Choji squealed.

"You definitely knocked him down a peg or two." Shika agreed wiping joyful tears from his eye's.

"Sorry, Ino I know you love him or what ever, but that was to great!" I plopped onto the grass and the others followed suit, Shika leaning against the tree, while I rested my head in his lap, laying on my back- feet on top of Choji's stomach as he to laid down. Ino was still standing.

"Well because of you I'm going to have to do major damage control, the shin shiners were all there to see Sasuke's embarrassment, Now the Sasuke fanclub needs to make sure people still know my Sasuke'-kun is top dog!" her voice was stern but she was smiling as she sat on the ground laying her head on my stomach and looking up at the sky like the rest of us.

"Just do a campaign thingie on how his hair is better then mine, I mean the kid obviously styles it, I just wake up and stick it in this pony tail." I tell her blandly.

"sometimes you just sleep with the ponytail in to save you the trouble in the morning." Shika tattled nudgeing me with his elbow.

"Like you can talk, mr. Lets sleep in our clothes so we can just wake up and go to school. We ended up having to do all the laundry for a week as punishment for being lazy." I scowled at Shika who just shrugged.

"You thought it was a good idea too." at the time I thought it was fool proof that I will admit. Father thought it was a great Idea too.

Our mother...

Ya not so much.

.

.

"Shin! Help us garden!" Ino screamed loudly. I look up from where I lay under a tree blandly. The three others were sweating tilling up the soil and removing rocks. Ino had somehow wrangled Shika into actually doing something. Which really did surprise me.

I mean that looked like hard work. I draw the line at training.

"I sprained my ankle yesterday. I can't" I close my eye's and roll over, back towards them. Asuma had left to have a steamy rendezvous with Kurenai. Wonder if I should tell him I can smell when humans...well...you know.

"You did not!" Ino screamed. Honestly did she not have any other volume other than blow your damn ear drums out.

"how would you know?" I counter, though I am not really interested in the banter, I just know if I annoy her enough she will leave me alone.

"Because I woould have heard from the Shin Shiners." Even without looking at the pungent blond I knew her hands were on her hips and she had a self satisfied look on her face.

"You know what I heard? That Sakura was seen holding hands with..." I wait a bit to let her curiosity take ahold of her. "Sasuke-kun." I finish, dawning my own self satisfied look.

"WHAT! BILLBOARD BROW? NEVER! WHERE DID YOU HEAR THIS? I WOULD HAVE KNOW!" Oh I was wrong, it seemed her volume still went up.

"Just now." I answer nonchalantly, then point to my large Fox ear. I can almost hear her explode, she begins to stomp away. "Ah- ah -ah." I say waggling the finger I was using to point to my ear. "You have to finish the mission first." I roll over winking to the boys, who looked a little uncertain of how to feel. "I mean a mission is a mission. You have to finish it, or that would make you a rougue ninja." I pluck a few strands of grass and let then blow away in the wind.

Her face is like a slide show of human emotions. First she was mad, then sad, then confused, then in deep thought, then realisation, then determination.

Needless to say, she finished the work all by her self, and we were done before Asuma could make a horrible excuse for why he vanished.

The boys seemed less conflicted when we were in front of a table full of barbeque, with the rest of the day for free time.

And who said antagonizing Ino wasn't a skill.

.

.

D ranks were boring, mind numbing exhausting, and complete, well...bull shit.

Can I say Bull shit? Well I guess the rating will have to go up now.

Plus I broke the fourth wall.

Today isn't a good day.

How many times are they going to make me catch that damn cat?

"Shin stop brooding and pay attention!" Ino snapped. I look over to her, Shika, Choji and I were peacefully laying under a tree, and...well Ino was lecturing us about something or the other. "I am team leader so listen up!" I look over to the other two boys, wwho honestly look equally spaced out.

"What is it now Ino?" I ask, trying not to annoy her further. Lets just say Ino was in the midst of blossuming into full blown women. Her first cycle was not doing any favors for her.

Or us.

"Nothing! You just need to listen when I speak!" She says flailing her arms around exsasperated. "Is it that hard to listen to my story!?" She criies out eyes getting moist with tears. I stare wide eyed at her, then to my teammates, who look more lost than I do.

"Okay i'm orry I'm listening...you were at the seamstresses..." That was the last peice of her story I had heard. She smiled at us and sat in the grass.

"Right! I was at the seamstresses, and I was going to try something new, like maybe a different top..." Okay I blanked out again. "GUYS! THIS IS IMPORTANT!" Ino screamed us all bak to attenntion." Shika sweat dropped, poor guy he didn't have a single clue what was wrong with her.

Thankfully we were all saved by our good and faithful sensei, who body flickered beside Ino. He smelled like ciggerets and...Kurenai. That explains the grin.

"SENSEI!" Choji exclaimed, the poor guy had gone through five chip bags from anxiety, with having to deal with our blond teammates mood swings.

"We are going on our first C-rank mission." He reports smiling. In the time it took Ino to register what this meant, Sensei had already thrown is smoke butt, and replaced it with a new pungent cancer stick.

"WAIT!" She exclaimed flipping her ponytail back. "We are going on a real mission?"

"This sounds troublesome." Shika decides, but since I knew better, I knew he was excited. We all knew C-ranks were easy things, it just may mean allot of walking, or guarding. But it was something other than watching children finding cats, or painting fences.

It was real ninja things, where we would have to strategize and think.

"Don't get to excited, it's border patrol." Asuma said, smiling brighter. I swear the only reason this guy became a sensei was to watch us feel miserable about our rank.

.

.

Let it be known that even ninja mom's get over protective on their kids first long term period away from home. Shika and i had never left the village without dad with us, and that was only once, and we went fishing. Well they fished, I got to lay in new grass.

"Okay did you pack extra underwear?" Mother asked searching through Shika's bag for the millionth time.

"Yesssss mom I did." Shika said through gritted teeth. The women turned to me.

"And you. Are you wearing underwear?" She asked through squinted eyes. I reached into my pants and pulled out the band off my- uncomfortable- underwear for her to see. "Okay." She looked at the both of us looking ready to cry.

"Dont cry!" I said quickly.

"Yeah, it's just border patrol, and it's the sand border, if anything the only thing you have to be worried about is how behind we will get in training." Shika reasoned, Mom nodded blinking back tears.

"Yeah besides, usually two Chunins man a patrol outpost, but there will be three genins, and a Jounin." I added, she nodded again but the moisture didn't leave her eyes. She went back to fixing- or messing up- our clothing and hair.

"Where is your father? He was supposed to send you guys off with me." emotion flooded her voice. That emotion was anger. Shika and I sweat dropped. Thankfully the door opened just then and dad stepped through it into the house.

"Ah- I was scared I missed you guu-" He stopped talking when he say out mothers face. A mixture of anger and tears on the women would make any man uneasy. He bent down to shika's ear. "What did I do?" He whispered making frantic eye contact with the both of us.

"Oh never mind. Come here for one last hug then you have to head to the gates before you are late!" Mom said pulling us into a deadly grip- a reminder that our mother was once a ninja as well- she did that strange thing where she sniffed our hair then let us go, turning us towards our father. He gave us both proud looks, which I will admit made me feel all warm and fuzzy. He placed his hands on our heads and smiled brighter.

"Good luck."

"Yeah, yeah, your making it seem like we are going on an A-rank mission. It's just border patrol. Friendly borders too." Shika said dismissively looking towards the ground. He was trying to brush off all the sentiment, he was weird that way, to much parental love made him feel awkward.

Not me, I liked to be hugged by our mother and praised by our father, I think thats a fox side affect, you know, social animal and all. I waved to them as we left out the door, trying not to feel guilty about mom's tears. Once we were out of the Nara district Shika let out a huge sigh.

"Sheesh, I hate it when she gets all emotional like that. Thats why I want a nice level headed wife." Shika tells me placing his hands in his pockets. I give him a sly look, yeah right, he said he wanted an agreeable kind wife last week. Now he wants a nice level headed wife? "What why are you looking at me like that?"

"Oh nothing. I just think your full of yourself." I shrug. He rolls his eyes but I can tell his curiosity is killing him, and he wants me to explain. "You need a wife who will be able to wake you up in the morning, and get you off to work in time, and make sure you keep your training up. Basically you need a wife exactly like our mother." Thankfully logic is something my brother has ample amounts off, and once it was said out in the open, he couldn't deny it.

"Yeah well...you need one exactly like her too." I give him an odd look.

"I wont ever get married." I say matter o-factly.

"what do you mean?" He says genuinely confused. "You have lots of women interested in you." Huh he really hasn't figured it out? I guess even he can be dense.

"Well...I am a fox, in all the ways that count. I can't have a human mate, it would be wrong. And you wont see me with a fox...thats just...weird." I shiver even thinking about it. Shika looks at me funny.

"I guess even I forget your fox." Well that makes two of us. He lets the subject drop, because honestly its a bit depressing. I'm like this awkward inbetween state, neither human or fox, and I can make bonds with humans, but never love in that all consuming way so many books speak about.

As we approach the gates, I see that we are the last to arrive, as per usual. We might have to work on that. Ino looks pissed.

Shit.

.

.

I disabled my human seal for the journey to the sand, I have more stamina, and hunting is far easier in this form.

Okay honestly, tree jumping...not my thing. I am a fox, my instincts rule me in allot of things, and in human form, while trying to jump from branch to branch, it makes me fumble, I try to use all four limbs the way I would if I was a fox, but that doesn't work as a human.

I can tell my team is weirded out seeing me as a fox again, it's a bit weird for me too, all my animal instincts cloud my mind, I hadn't realised being a human had blocked them so much, now it was harder to resist. It was like being out of practice in a sport, it takes a few hours to get used to, but at nightfall I'm used to it. Or more or less used to it.

We travel an hour more nothing but the moon and stars lighting our way then we stop to make camp. Or they make camp and i got get some fresh meat for dinner.

It doesn't take to long to find the sent and tracks of a rabbit, silently I follow until the cotton tail is in my sights, I pounce forward.

To both mine and the rabbits surprise, my leg gets caught in a steel trap inches before my teeth wrap around its neck. My instincts cloud my mind.

RUN RUN RUN PAIN RUN PAIN RUN CALL OUT RUN RUN PAIN DANGER.

I call out to other foxes and don't dare look down at my leg. The human part of my brain is telling me just use seals, I can use an earth seal to disintegrate the metal jaw biting into my flesh.

It's also saying something like 'god damnit I am defeated by a god damn animal trap?'

But at this moment my mind is more fox then human, and all I can think about is the pain and running.

And the fact that three men are walking towards me.

"It's just a fox."

"Why are we trying to lure ninja like we would animals?"

"Because we can't take on ninja fairly."

"and we know this is the root leaf ninja use to get to the guard outpost. They have to hunt or food right?" my fox brain is calculating escape routes, though all routes are stunted by the over sized jaw around my ankle. If I was in human form I could pull it out of the ground, the men were small, I could use us water wave seal as a quick distraction. Camp was about a mile away. Though with a pretty broken foot it would be complicated.

What the hell, if I stayed I'd be dead anyways.

I activate my seal, I would have enjoyed the surprised looks of the ninja hunter guys better if it wasn't for the fact that as I changed the size of my trapped ankle grew, thus the deeper the teeth dug and the force of the hold heightened.

It fucking hurt. But I couldn't focus on that. I put my hand on the ground in front of me and the rune for a water wave was summoned before they could think. I couldn't wait to watch the damage it did on the weird poacher guys. I pulled the pin that held my steel trap to the ground and started to make a break for it. Blood pooled into my mouth, as I bite my cheeks to stiffle my cries. The fact that I was naked phased me for a second but the sound of being followed chased that thought away. I picked up my pace, vision blotching with the pain. The ankle was definitely broken.

Oh god I wasn't going to get away. I place my hand to a near by tree, an inferno quickly was set to the bark, each tree I passed I set fire to, it made a clear path to where I was sure, but soon it would spread, just as long as it bought me some surprise factor and stalled them long enough for it to spread.

And hopefully it signalled my team because I was about to black out in the middle of my own inferno.

Okay there was possibly a better solution then starting a forest fire.

I should put this out.

I summoned another water wave behind me, then another.

Clearly I am delusional, I am just tiring myself out.

I could have just made a wall.

I summon a large wall to erect behind me.

I'm loosing to much blood, which is making me delusional, and light headed, plus I probably broke some bones, and due to being delusional, and my animal instincts being total dicks right now, I am wasting chakra like no ones business, but i cant stop to replenish right now.

How has my team not come to save me.

Something stabbed me in the back. Don't be alarmed though, it was a needle, I almost didn't notice it, that is until extreme heat bloomed from the tiny pin prick and then my muscles turned to jello, and well...I fell asleep.

First mission grade for me.

F- -

Is that a grade? Well I made it a grade now.


	7. Chapter 7-A Fox in Recovery

When i woke, my ankle was wrapped and splinted, and the bandages were soaked with blood. Also i felt like pukeing my head hurt, and my eyes felt to big for their sockets. All I could do was groan to signal I was awake.

Shika was quickly as my side, causing the small twigs beside me to snap and crackle as he crouched down.

"Hey your awake." He noted. If I felt less like crap I would have pointed out how obvious that statement was. Or maybe said something witty like "and your breathing, glad we got that figured out." Instead though I just looked around. We were at the camp we were at before i went and got trapped by a steel jaw of suffering, and chased through the forest, by the incredibly scraggly, and weak men tied to a tree. Doing a quick assessment, it looked like Ino was in one of their minds, and Choji was sifting through their belongings, Asuma looked like he was attempting to break a pigeons leg.

This was only a quick distraction from the horrible pain in my ankle. I could tell there was more wrong with it then just a broken bone. Shattered bone maybe, shifting into a human, after having my bone shattered as a fox clearly did me no good. By how freezing cold I am I lost allot of blood. I couldn't move my toes so either I was paralyzed which is unlikely, or I tore substantial muscle.

"I'm sorry, I had been in fox form in a while, when I got trapped in the claw, instinct-" I stopped talking to let my teeth chatter a bit. I was under a blanket and someone appeared to have dressed me, but I felt freezing. The urge to slink back into my fox body to be embraced by the warmth of my fur coat was really appealing right now. "took over, and I couldn't think clearly enough to stop them." I continued.

In all honestly I was ashamed. I should have seen the trap, I should have smelt the humans near by, but i had focused on the hunt. It's like I was lacking in all departments, in fighting my instinct I left myself vulnerable, and by giving into them when danger arrived, I turned into a floundering mess.

Shika pulled my blanket up as Asuma came up behind him.

"You didn't do anything wrong. You had your leg trapped in a trap, you got our attention and ran, which was the best choice." Asuma reassured.

"Yeah, no one would have expected you to take on all three." Shika said resting his hand on my shoulder. I nodded, but the words didn't register with me. Had I stopped and assessed then men I could have stopped them using seals, and wouldn't have had to run on my leg. And I could have stayed in fox form.

"You sit tight bud, team eight will be here in a few hours, with a medic nin." Asuma said patting my head. His words blurred together as I struggled to stay conscious.

"I need. A. Vet." I slurred out before I fell back into oblivion."

.

.

"Shin wake up." Shika's voice told me. I struggled to open my eyes. "You need to cancel the human rune so that Hana can heal you." I opened my eyes and found who I assumed was Hana infront of me. She had red triangles on her cheeks. Ah the vet. I pressed my hand to my rune and pushed what little chakra I could manage into it.

Ah. I still hadn't replenished.

"i should replenish my chakra supplies before you start healing." I croak out back in my fox form. She nods and I close my eyes. Gathering nature chakra was allot like gathering your own bodily chakra for a jutsu, except i take it from everything around me, the earth the trees the water in the ground, I gather it into a ball then pour it into my body and watch as it fills my system.

Or i guess feel.

I can feel the nature energy begin healing, and strengthening without being asked to.

My theory is that it does this because it is pure. So it heals and reinforces the body. Where human chakra doesn't because, it is impure, made from impure mind, with impure intentions. It's just a theory though. I'd have to find a way to test it one day.

The vet began healing before i even gave consent which I found rude.

Maybe I was just butt hurt because for the third time I passed out again.

.

.

"A combination of Iryo ninjutsu, and his nature energy helped his ankle heal as fast as it did." A stiff professional voice reported.

"But why is he still asleep? Why isn't he waking up!" My mothers voice asked frantically.

"I'm not sure, but he should be up soon, I think his deep sleep is simply his body focussing on healing itself." The other voice answered.

"I think he is waking up now." Shika's voice whispered. I slowly tried to pull my eyelids open, and panicked when burning light reach my eyes. I blinked frantically, until the light was less blinding. I focussed on the faces hovering close to me. My mothers worried and happy face, my fathers slightly bored and welcoming face, then Shika, who looked mostly curious.

"Hey shin how are you feeling?" Mom asked fluffing my pillows. I looked down at myself, I was in fox form, but I felt fine.

"Your ankle will need some time to heal fully, so no strenuous activity on it for two weeks." The stiff voice said. I looked towards it, she wasn't the doctor/vet who helped me in the field, but she was wearing a lab coat, so I assumed she was a doctor.

"Can he change back to a human?" Dad asked. The doctor gave an unsure look.

"It should be alright, i'd rather he do it now at the hospital, where i can monitor it." I gather the chakra and push it into my seal, changing forms doesn't hurt, like I had imagined.

My limbs go numb and tingly and for a moment I feel like I am just a floating soul, like I have no body, then it feels like...hmm, well you know when your sitting funny and your foot falls asleep, so asleep that you cant even move your toes, so you change how your sitting and then you get those pins and needles as circulation back into the foot.

Yeah, thats how it feels, except imagine all those feelings fast-forwarded to fit into fifteen seconds. It's a bit unpleasant, but its over fast.

But suddenly I realised I was naked on the bed, with four people starring at me. Not in a perverted way but an -Oh my god, shin is naked- way. Shika pulled the blanket over me, and my family is fairly chill so they just go on like I wasn't stark naked under this thin hospital sheet.

"how does it feel?" The doctor asks. She has the good nature not to blush, or to comment on earlier nakedness.

"Uh to turn into a human, or the ankle?" I ask.

"Well...both."

"Well, neither hurt. Though the ankle feels...like when you pull a muscle." the muscle felt exhausted, like after you have a charlie horse, and the muscle feels like goo, thats how my ankle felt. But i was happy to see I could move my toes.

"Thats good. Alright we can sign the discharge papers, and you can head home, as long as you promise only light activity's for the next two weeks." The doctor gave me a serious look and I had to pinch myself not to roll my eyes, and just nodded. Mom and dad left with the doctor, and Shika, being the amazing brother he was tossed some clothes on my bed.

Shika nonchalantly turns around while I change.

"I need your help with something." I say as I pull on my pants. "Oh you can turn around now." I say putting on my...ninja fanny pack? I'm going to call it a utility belt. Shika turns eyeing me wearily as I pull on my sandals, and tuck the black hem of my pants into the form fitting sandal. Tucking baggy ish pants into half calf sandals didn't look great but it was for the best.

"What is it?" Shika asks as I carefully pull on the sandal for my injured foot. It didn't hurt really, but I felt the need to be carefull...and to lick it.

I ignored the latter though.

"Well shifting forms messes with my head, it clouds it all upp, and the two different natures fighting each other, makes me vulnerable. I need you to help me...train. I need to get a handle on it." I eye the plain white long sleeved shirt, and decide to leave it.

Shika looks at me then places his hand on his chin. I pat the bed beside me and he sits, though to be honest i don't think he realises he does this, he is to far lost in his thoughts.

"I guess the only way to really help would be to practice. Constantly change forms while sparring..." He trails off still thinking. "We should talk to sensei once your better. You shouldn't exert yourself until you get the doctors go ahead to train." Shika gave a pouty face.

"Your jealous of me huh." I say smirking. Typical Shika, jealous I got to break my ankle and have two weeks off.

"of course, you will probably be able to lay around all day, while i have to train." He grumbles, laying back on my bed, arms crossed behind his head.

"Don't worry next time you can be eaten by the steel trap." I lay back beside him in an Identical pose. "Besides knowing our mother I'll still be doing chores, twice as many actually." Shika makes an amused sound. Clearly happy about the latest development.

We both closed our eyes and sunk into the bed, the door opened, and I braced myself for Moms complaints about us napping anywhere and everywhere. But instead I was greeted by a squeak, well two squeaks. I lazily opened one eye. It was Ino, and the chick with pink hair.

I really wanted to know how her hair was pink.

Once at Dads work I saw a chick with purple hair.

And one guy with burns all over his face.

"SHIN PUT YOUR SHIRT ON! THERE ARE LADYS PRESENT!" Ino screamed. Shika and i both jumped with fright. I sat up and squinted at her.

"Stop yelling I'm sick." She just rolled her eyes and put her hands on her hips. "why did you come if your just going to make me uncomfortable and wear a shirt?" I argued.

"Because I brought you flower's!" She yelled shaking th bouquet around.

"I don't like flowers, they smell like you, which brings back horrible memories." Shika gave me a 'wtf man' look and just laid back down closing his eyes.

"OH YEAH!" Ino yelled. "TAKE THE STUPID FLOWERS! I THOUGHT YOU WERE DEAD! DO YOU KNOW HOW WORRIED I WAS WHEN I SAW YOU!" She yelled stomping towards me wrenching my out of bed causing Shika to fall to the ground. She thrust the flowers into my hands.

Her eyes filled with moisture.

My eyes filled with moisture.

"Shin are you crying?" ino asked in a sincere voice.

"Only because your standing on my hurt foot, and making my ankle bend weird." She looked down to our feet noting the weird angel my already sore limb was bent and quickly stepped off it blushing deeply. Sakura burst into laughter.

"Ino pig broke his ankle again!" she cried out. I didn't find it funny, i sat on the bed and rubbed the muscle.

"I'm sorry for worrying you." I mumble, grabbing the white shirt and pulling it on. Ino was still blushing, and agitated but nodded to my apology. "I'll be better in no time." I reassure her.

"Well I'm off to pack for my C-rank, which will not such a disaster, like Ino-pigs was." Sakura declared gleefully.

"HEY! We stopped three human trafficker's! It was upgraded to a B-rank." Ino yelled sticking her tongue out at her friend...were they friends? It seemed like they hated each other but they continued to hang out.

Lets just stick with friend.

Sakura waved goodbye and Ino followed, stomping after her, yelling random things, to which Sakura would counter.

Good grief, they were exhausting. I feel sorry for who ever ends up being their mates.

Ino took my get well flowers with her...


	8. Chapter 8-A Fox is Now a Gardener?

I was on deer watch duty, so basically I sat in the field and watched as the deer's just did their own thing, like eat grass, or prance around. They were less agitated by my presence now, which was nice.

My team was on an escort mission, which hopefully was running more smoothly.

The past week of 'bed rest' had been boring, sometimes I laid in my bed, sometimes i laid on the couch, sometimes I sat still as Mom braided my hair, right now, the tiny braids which looped and connected to my loose ponytail made me look like some sort of nature fairy.

A sexy nature fairy, mom assured.

We also peeled allot of things, like carrot's, or cucumbers, or other peelable veggies. We also swept soooooo much. Its like the ground always had a way pf attracting dust and dirt.

Laundry was about as fun as it sounded. Folding the clothes was harder then creating a new seal.

But on that note, it gave me wonderful amounts of times to create new seals. But sadly I had no inspiration, Mom had tried to give me some ideas, like turning tthe round to lava.

So that's what i was doing now.

Well i wasn't turning the ground to lava right now, just creating the prototype seals. I could turn one palm sized stone to lava.

It was a strange mixture of fire and earth jutsu, which was hard to balance out. Theoretically you needed more heat then earth jutsu, but then again without enough earth jutsu you couldn't control the lava, and you could end up frying your self.

Which was bad.

Because you'd be dead and all.

At least when my team was in Konoha I could watch them train, or laugh as they pulled weeds out of an old womens garden, but i no longer had that entertainment. Not that I didn't lovee spending time with mom or the deers.

Oh good that was deer poop. I put my hand in deer poop.

As I was saying, I didn't mind it, but I was a fox, and I felt like this...this...this doing nothing was fraying my nerves.

I wanted to run, and kill a rabbit, and eat it.

I also wanted to go pee on trees and fight with a fox and show my manliness, and prove my superiority.

There was the scent of a fox slowly and slowly comming closer, he was still ten miles out of my "territory" but who does he think he is even getting that close.

But Mom watched me like a hawk.

She made me eat veggies.

Apparently it would make me strong.

If by strong she meant nauseous she was correct.

Also I hadn't been away from Shika for longer than a few hours, and I don't want to say I was having separation anxiety.

But oh my god I am having separation anxiety. Every time i closed my eyes I was seeing him having his foot trapped in a steel trap, and human traffickers taking him away in a cage, like an animal. Or he find a little baby fox and replacing me.

A weirder worry of mine, is that on the road someone would offer him drugs, and he would say yes, then find his way into a brothel, and get lost in the sex trade.

I mean he was attractive.

It could happen.

You never know.

...

You know... Before this bed rest thing, I thought I was a very chill person, you know easy going, smart, cool.

Maybe I am only all those things because Shika was all those things.

What if he made me all those things.

What if without me, he was all agitated and his hand was covered in deer poop.

"Shin! Shika is home!"

Sweet mother of all that is good!

.

.

"So how was the last three days without me?" Shika asked. We were sitting on the back veranda playing a game a shoji. I shrugged.

"Mom made me eat vegetable's." i told him.

"Troublesome." I nodded in agreement. "Well on the road I was thinking about you." My heart fluttered, he was thinking about me to. "Imagine your Fox and human selves like ying and yang, you need to balance them out, because to much of one, will make you bite anyone who tries to reach for your food, and to much of the other, will make you loose your hearing and smell." Oh he was thinking of THAT. Gotacha. I considered his words.

They made sense.

"so I have to find a happy medium. But when I shift my brain shifts with me, and if I'm on a mission like last time where I have to shift in the heat of battle I don't have time to...you know sit cross legged and meditate." I reason.

"Right...mind over matter though. You make the balance so strong, that the shift doesn't affect it." interesting theory.

"Right...but how do I do that?" Shika just shrugs.

Great thanks bud.

"Maybe you can visit the fire monks." Shika says, it takes all my will power not to laugh. "Dont give me that look! Not like you had any better ideas, I mean they meditate all the time, they could probably coach you."

"yes I will go join the monks, shave my head, and maybe get some couple t-shirts." Shika did not look impressed by my sarcasm. Thats a shame...I thought it was funny.

"Ya Ya alright, it was just the first idea that popped into my head." shika grumbled. "You could ask uncle Inoichi for help. I opened my mouth to tell him how stupid that was.

But then...I realised it wasn't stupid.

"Thats a good idea." I admitted out loud.

Shika just gives me his cocky ' I know it was my idea' look.

I missed him. But he was still annoying.

.

.

"OH MY GOD SHIN! WHAAT IS THIS!" I smiled brightly at mom.

"Isn't it cool." I said sweat soaking my clothes. "Watch this." I grabbed a near by pebble spreading a rune across it and throwing it into our backyard, which was now a pit of lava. A piller of lava rose up from the glowing red goop, and with a quick seal on my palm a hose of water cooled it into a stone stand. I leapt to the top of it repeating the prosses and motioning for my mom to hop onto the new one. With ninja grace, in a dress and apron I might add, she jumped onto the pillar and sat cross legged.

"So you can control the lava too huh?" She looks around at our back yard.

"I'm in trouble huh?" I ask looking at her face. "in my defense I made sure the heat is controlled and wont start the house on ffire. I just can't say the same for the...cherry and plum trees...or the bushes."

"Well, you have three days left of break, and I want my yard to look better then it did before you decided to turn it to lava young man." she gave me a stern look which softened into a smile. "But this is pretty cool." She agreed.

.

.

"Hey why does our back yard look like...stone?" Dad asked as we ate dinner on the veranda.

"Oh Shin turned it to lava." Mom said nonchalantly. Dad spat out his rice in surprise. Which is saying something, because he was the most chill man I knew.

"Dont worry, I think I can turn it back to dirt." I reassured. "The grass and plants are going to be...more difficult."

"Hey I'm home." Shika yelled after entering the house. He walked towards us, guessing we would all be here. "why is our back yard stone?" I sweat dropped. Sheesh no one in this house can just not comment on the fact thaat the back yard is stone huh?

"Shin turned it to lava." Mom said just as nonchalantly as beffore. Thoough unlike dad Shika just shrugged and grabbed his rice bowl.

"Turning it back to dirt should be easy enough for you. But the grass part...more difficult." Shika said as mom deboned his fish for him.

"Yeah i was going to pick up some Iryo ninjustsu books."

"That makes sense, since Iryo ninjutsu is probing atoms and inducing hormones to make flesh heal." Shika agreed.

"Yeah I was going to see if I cant stimulate the hormones in plants to make them grow. Preferably fast." I said the last part bitterly.

"The pond should be a snap." Shika stated looking at the yard.

"Yeah, I could probably even create some sort of natural flow, and filtration system so that Mom doesn't have to clean it all the time." Okay sooooo i was sucking up, you would too if you turned your mothers garden into lava.

"we should run to Ino's to get seeds to start working." Shika didn't care to understand seal work, but he worked well enough to bounce ideas off of.

"As long as we are redoing the back yard, we should make some sort of fire pit, so we can step up our potluck game." Mom reasoned.

.

.

Seal work was like...algorithms. Or well... I dont know, but the worst sort off math ever.

My normal seals were simple coding and big writing. This plant hormone stimulator was...a bitch.

Okay let me break this down. There is no element I could do this through, you cant place iryo ninnjutsu into a seal...or at least no one had done it yet. So before my seals were like cheats, I take this section from that seal master I take that section ffrom that seal master.

Bam my very own shin seal.

There was none of that here.

I had to somehow put Iry ninjutsu into a seal, even though i have no idea how to do Iryo ninjutsu, or any ninjutsu.

So I creeped around the hospital observing.

After that did nothing I took out all books that could possibly help...at my clearance level, which was absolutely nothing at all.

I am a day in with no results. Except for the fact that I somehow have to stimulate the Auxin and Cytokinin.

Auxin promotes elongating in plant cells, and Cytokinin promotes duplication of cells.

I need to figure out how to single out these cells, but I need equipment, and clearance.

Which is why i am here sir" I give the hokage a shy look.

"Because you turned your mothers backyard harden to Lava.." He trails off pufing out billowy white smoke.

"Have you met my mom?" I ask awkwardly laughing.

"And you think you can finish this in the last two days of your sick leave?" He asks eyebrows raised.

"Well I have to, because I'm pretty sure my mother would kill me if I didn't." I nod. He chuckles a bit.

"Okay you will have the lab on the third floor of this building for 48 hours. And 48 hours of un restricted clearance to the library." He stamps and signs a paper and hands it too me. I grab the paper from his hands trying to hang on to my dignity and not let my jaw drop to the floor.

"Thank you so much sir! I wont let you down!"

.

.

Saratobi Pov

"Sir don't you think thats dangerous, to give him unrestricted access's to the librarys?" Monkey asks, slinking out of his hiding spot.

"Reckless maybe, but Shin has no interest in anything but the seal." I comment amused with the fox/boys fear of his mother.

"Do you think he can do it?" monkey asks.

"I think if he does, he might just be a genius."

.

.

"It's not working!" I cry out. Looking at the withered grass. The seal had work enough for the grass to poke upp from the soil, but they quickly whithered and died.

"IT's because we are skipping the step of photosyn- they have to life in them!" Shika exclaimed happily as I sunk into the near by rolly chair. I wonder if the hokage would let me keep thee chair. Other scientists looked at us with disgust, as per usual. Probably because of my no restriction library card.

"Yeah thanks for pointing it out. Now that it was said out loud I feel- wait." It dawned at me what he was getting at. "WE NEED TO-"

"ssssshhhhhh" The adults suddenly shushed in unison.

"Exactly. We need to use nature chakra!" Shika had been the one using the seals since i was technically not supposed to be straining myself chakra wise.

"Okay here goes nothing..." the seal looked beautiful, it looked like the word grow in thick ink, but it you looked under a microscope you would see the tinny algorithms and coding that made the visible letters. Around the word grow, was three rings, the first ring was closest to the word grow, this ring was like sort of filtration for the chakra, kind of like when you make sure their are no air bubbles in a baby bottles, it made sure only pure chakra went into the actual formula. The next ring was further to the outside of the seal, this one stabilized the rune, it made sure the whole thing didn't blow up, which happened to me to many times before. The last one was a safe guard, it made sure that at a certain point the seal wouldn't take more chakra, with out this ring, a novice, or even a intermediate seal user could bleed their chakra dry, the seal could be like a vacuum. These rings were then divided into ten pie like pieces, this balanced the seal. Normally when I made seals, they were divided into four, maybe five pie pieces, but this one wouldn't balance right until we reached magic number ten.

And was it one hell of a journey trying to balance it.

If it wasn't for my ability to control the ink it would have taken week to write, and quite a few hand cramps.

I pushed nature chakra into the seal, which spreads across the fresh soil in the gardening box. We had gone through about ten in the last hour, mixed into the dirt was grass seeds. The ink was almost unnoticeable across the dark soil, and I don't think anyone truly appreciated how much concentration it took to spread this complex and involved type of seal, the effort alone made me sweat.

Never mind the fact that by using Nature chakra, I had to concentrate on certain attributes of it.

I'll have to brake this down so you can understand.

Nature chakra surrounds us, even if your in a shabby building, with zero plant life. The air holds chakra, and not just wind chakra, though wind chakra has a greater percentage.

All the elements live in everything. Lightening, wind, fire, earth. Its everywhere. Breaking it down further, so is well life force, chi. They move together, and when channeling nature chakra for a wind jutsu seal, I filter out all the other natures and push in wind nature to the seal.

Explaining how i do this is difficult...imagine separating laundry into piles, and thats basically that its like, except fast paced.

Separating the main natures was simple, I had done it many times before, it was like muscle memory. But building up just plain old life ...well that was different story. It was more like seaperateing ANOTHER familys laundry, you didn't really know, whose clothes were whose clothes, so you had to guess by the colour, the feel and the size.

I had never tried to single out pure life energy.

And after the fact, I realised I should have practiced, I didn't know how much or how little to put in sooo...

The grass exploded from the soil, and even when my hand was taken away it continued to grow, shika and I backed away as it grew longer and longer.

"Make it stop." Shika said in a surprisingly calm voice. The grass wasn't going crazy and wrapping around things, but it was growing across the counter and onto the other scientists were watching and clapping. Once the demon grass finally stopped growing, Shika and I looked over at each other.

Thats when it hit us.

We did it.

We made grass grow.

I wasn't going to die.

I reached towards the grass and touched it, I don't know what I was expecting, for it to be sooft, to have an emotional connection withh the grass that I made, but you know...it was just unhealthily long grass.

"Do you think the formula would be the same or trees?" Shika asked poking the grass still a little shell shocked.

"I mean the properties should carry over" I nod.

"you did it!" Shika exclaimed in a rare moment of excitement. I looked over to him and smiled.

"We did it, I couldn't have done it without you." Its true through the whole process, he helped me reason things out, and though he didn't quite understand all the words or formulas I was spouting, he asked me the right questions for me to find the correct answers. He also helped by keeping me sane.

Half the time i felt like pulling my hair out.

That would make mom more mad because she poured allot of time into doing all these little braids.

But that was when a man in a monkey mask came and rained on our parade. He appeared literally out of the roof and took our plant box and notes. I recognized him as an anbu right away, which is why I didn't sock him in the nose for touching my over grown grass, and notes.

"the Hokage would like to see the both of you." Shika and I look at each other, then shrug to the anbu. We follow the Anbu guy out of the lab, i whine a bit when he throws my notes ontop of the plant- like it wasn't just born, and possibly unstable.

"hey can you be careful with the grass, I need to test it..." yea he isn't listening to me.

After the failed attempt to get the anbu to be more careful with my grass, the walk up to the Hokage's office is spent in silence.

The anbu jostles the grass, and time slows as he almost drops the square pot onto the ground, Shika and I both wince, but thank fully the anbu is able to right his hold on it and open the door. He step inside first, then Shika and I follow.

The Hokage smiles up at us from his little desk thingie and grabs his dormant pipe, stuffy more tobacco into it before lighting it.

We just watch silent as ever, waiting to find out why he stole our grass.

"I must say I wasn't expecting you to pull it off in two days, or at all." The Hokage says through a smile, as he speaks puffs of tobacco leave hiss lips.

"Well, I had a good assistant." I could feel Shika hating my compliment.

"Well unfortunately, this seal will have to be forbidden, and highly classified." I open my mouth but no words come out.

I could point out how unfair it is, but I don't think the Hokage would like 'thats so not fair' I'm not sure your even allowed to say that to him. Instead I say something equally intelligent.

"My moms grass..." thankfully I have my brother to share in my stupidity.

"The pond.." Shika says in the same dazed tone as I had.

"Well there is a forbidden jutsu called Shadow clone. It makes clones solid like humans. I know it, and so does allot of jounins. But all the notes are hidden and classified, and people who know it aren't allowed to teach it." The old man tells us. I mean its a good story, but why is he telling us this?

"So your saying shin can still use it, but he can't teach it to others...Right?" Shika asked. The old man smiled, a tad mishtiviously.

"Exactly, but he doesn't need to explain it to me. Come sit." The old man pointed to the pillows infront of his desk thingie. Shika and I both sat and the Anbu guy put my notes and grass infront of the Hokage.

"Well, I went through Iryo ninjutsu books, though they didn't have what I was looking for so...I went into the restricted section, and found a steroid method, where the medic induces fast muscle growth. Its. But it basically told me what i knew, I'd have to single out the specific hormones, then nudge and encourage them to work faster. I then took the next logical step and studied plants, far closer than I ever wanted to, I learnt their makeup, and how they work, I familiarised myself with the look and feel of Auxin and Cytokinin. Then...uh can I see my notes?" The hokage nodded, and it seemed like he was keeping up so far. He passed me all the papers and I leafed through then as well as grabbed a blank piece of rice paper. "Okay, so then I had to write out the whole chemical makeup of your atypical plant, all the hormones and structure, and DNA sequence." I handed him the papers which had such things on them in my messy quick hand writing. I grabbed the blank rice paper and spread the final seal out onto it.

"Okay you see the G and the R those are all that in tiny tiny writing, The rest is singling out the Auxin and Cytokinin, then promoting them to grow, and the other hormones to balanced out with them. Thats another useful thing I found out from the Iryo forbidden jutsu, the problem with that one was that the medc didn't even out the other aspects of the muscles, just prompting the tissue to grow, she didn't think to make sure that the muscles where oxygenated, hydrated, or they had sufficient nerve mapping." The hokage was sifting through the notes and inspecting the finished seal. "Once I did the proper balancing and outer rings to the seal, we had thought we reached a dead end. I am on medical leave, and was instructed not to over use my chakra, I had been doing the trial and error seals for a while, so Shika had taken over. Once we reached this point, we didn't know what was happening, the grass would grow, and then it would whither us and die. Then Shika had the idea to use my Nature chakra, because the thing missing in the equation was...well life." I took a deep breath.

"Okay so nature chakra is fairly easy to comprehend, there are the major natures, which we know, then their is just pure life chakra, which is a nature only sages, or animals like me, and I guess also summons can use. When I use my chakra to use a jutsu seal, I filter out all the other natures and just use the one I need, for example, if I am summoning a wave, then I will only use water nature. Thats easy, because thats what i usually do, or for seals like my human shifting seal, i don't have to filter anything at all. This seal though I needed to filter everything out BUT pure chakra, chakra with no nature, then put that into the seal." Without knowing it as I was explaining I had gotten up and was pacing, and my voice had been getting more and more excited.

"And you boys did all this in just two days?" He asked.

"Well we didn't sleep." Shika admitted as I sat back down. "And I didn't really do anything, other than support him."

"don't under estimate the power your support can give to a friend." The hokage said, sounding like the wise old man he was. "so this seal can only be used by summons or a sage?"

"A sage master probably, Nature chakra is all I ever used, and i was sweating from excretion, and the amount I had to take in to get enough pure nature chakra would probably kill a sage. Unless they had a monster amount of chakra."

"Well, even so we should still seal it up and put it into the forbidden seal." The hokage told us. "You should probably go fix your mothers garden and get some rest now." We nod and bow to him, realising his dismissal.

.

.

Saratobi POV

"They are brilliant." Monkey comments once the boys leave. "they did this in one day."

"I don't think either of them truly realise how amazing of a feat this is. I know shikamaru doesn't realise how much sway he really had in the grand scheme of it." I think out loud.

"Are you going to promote them?" Monkey asks. I think on that for a moment.

"Let them have their time as genin's, the chunin exam is coming up, then we can promote them to special jounin. I doubt they will fail thee chunin exams."


	9. Chapter 9-A Fox's Exams!

I had missed my team when I was forced to sit at home and do nothing. Well I missed doing things, not really them. OKAY maybe I missed them a bit, but a tinnnny bit, like a good solid 10%.

Now I was questioning why I missed them at all.

Or at least a certain loud annoying blond girl who smelt like she bathed in perfume.

"Hey Ino I don't get why we all have to go visit Sakura's injured team in the hospital. I dont think i like any of them. Well sometimes I like Naruto, but most of the time he is just as loud and pungent as you." I ask following behind her with Shika and Choji at my sides. Neither of them wanted to go.

"Yeah Ino, Sasuke is always a jerk. I don't want to go, lets just go get barbeque." Choji agreed.

"Troublesome." Shika helpfully sighed.

"Well isn't it obvious. I want to see him and care for him, but I cant go alone because that would look desperate, plus if I show up with Shin it might make him jealous." Ino answered pushing Choji aside and latching onto my arm...she scarily reminded me off tora.

"Yeah jealous of you, that you get to hang out with such a good looking and charismatic guy like me." I countered slipping out of her grip, but she acted fast in grabbing it again.

"You wish, your looks are average, and you have a horrible personality." She flicked her long blond pony tail back with her free arm, and heaps of sass.

"Fine I'll go as long as you pay for the barbeque bill. Shika and I used up all our spending money on seeds to fix the back yard." I grumbled and quit struggling.

"Deal!" she shrieked loudly. We went straight to the hospital room, when we got there the three genins and their sensei seemed to have finished up being healed. I had heard of their sensei, and to honest I was jealous we didn't get him, though it was expected.

Kakashi of the sharingan, or the copy cat ninja. I don't know how else to put it, but the porn reading, silver haired fellow before me was a bad ass. Excuse my french.

"Ino Pig? What are you doing here?" Sakura asked, placing her hands on her hips, looking allot like Ino when she was particularly annoyed with us.

"Choji, Shikamaru?" Naruto asked in his gravily squeaky voice. Unlike most of the preteens in this room, he was not approaching puberty, so we were stuck with his grating voice for a while. Oh joy.

Sasuke looked over my team eyes landing on me, then he did that weird grunt thing he does before looking away.

"We were going to get barbeque thought we'd invite you guys to join." Shika supplied as Ino and Sakura got lost in their pointless fights where they just call each other weird names and scream.

"Yeah! And we can tell you about our A-rank mission!" Naruto exclaimed, and if I didn't now any better I'd say I caught a flash of a smile on Sasuke's lips.

.

.

"My Sasuke-kun almost died!" Ino screamed then turned to Sakura. "What were you doing? Why didn't you help?" Sakura crossed her arms and looked the other way, but I had a feeling Ino's words stung deeper than Sakura let on.

I looked over to the resident grump, and he looked more glum and hateful then normal.

"I almost died to." I don't know why I tell them this, I just felt like getting the heat off of the emo kid before he flipped a table and turned into the anger monster I knew he was.

"It's true,, our first C-rank was upgraded to a B-rank." choji said between mouth fulls of meat. I really dont think he ever chews. He is going to get sick.

"- suddenly their was a raging forest fire, then a wave of water, then we saw a humongous stone wall, when we reached him he was naked and covered in blood passed out." Ino told...did she really have to say I was naked.

"wait...why were you naked?" Naruto asks, spinning his pinky into his ear...gross.

"When I shift from fox to human I have no clothes on." I shrug pretending it wasn't embarrassing.

"How did you not see the steel trap?" Sasuke asked in a snide voice.

"I hadn't been a fox for a while so I was ruled by that...mentality. Foxes don't really look for human traps laying about while mid hunt." Again I said it in an obvious voice trying to brush it off. My team nodded understanding, though the team across from us looked at us like we were certifiably crazy.

"Is it weird shifting? Like does it hurt? Are you cold without your fur? Do u know how to use a toilet?" Naruto asked with each question raising further and further across the table until his face was inches rom mine, andd his pungent breath was suffocating me. I place my fore finger on his nose and roughly push him back in his seat. He waits for my answers, but I don't grace his idiotic questions with an answer.

"O MY GOD ITS SHIN AND SASUKE!" Sasuke and I both react to the call of our fans the same, wide eyed and terrified.

"Not the fans again." Choji complained.

"Can't you tell them to go away?" Shika asks.

"Whats the big deal with these two, they don't seem very special. This guy even looks demented with these weird ears on his head." Naruto asks his finger, which had been used to scratch his ass minuets earlier poke my ear. I growl low and menacingly.

Slowly and terrified the blond removes his hand. I turn to look at the growing crowd of girls and more surprising, women.

Though...Ino and sakura seem to be eating up the attention, both were nonchalantly fixxing their hair, ino kept touching my shoulder, brushing my hair away, while Sakura tried to do the same to Sasuke, only to have her hand swatted away.

"Don't you like Sasuke? Why are you all touchy feely with me?" I whisper to her in a low voice.

"Well Sasuke would just push me away, which would make me look worse, also the whole point of this was for Sasuke to see you with me and be jealous." She tells me like its the most obvious thing in the world.

...she can be scary smart when it came to things like this.

"Shin can you cook me some meat?" Ino asked batting her eyes at me. I closed my own or a second repressing the urge to roll them

"Sure how long?" I ask attempting to not sigh out the words.

"Well done." She says happily rubbing my forearm.

"Gross, you should try at least medium rare. Its good." I tell her, honestly I don't know why humans cook their meat at all, its like taking all the flavor out. Nasty. I take the strips of meat off the grill at medium rare to stick on her plate, she opens her mouth for me to feed her. I look to Shika and Choji for...I don't know, maybe if they broke my arm I'd get out of this, but the two of them were sniggering with Naruto, I'm pretty sure they were making whip noises.

Bloody traitors.

I bring one strip of meat to her mouth, she gracefully take it then covers her mouth with her hand while she chews.

"You were right Shin this does taste better." She tells me smiling. She hates it, I can see by the way her eye brow is twitching. I take delight in feeding her the rest. After she rests her headd on my shoulder, and stabs her little knife like fingers into my ribs.

It was worth it.

"Shin can you make me meat like that, I keep trying but I over cook it." Sakura asks head tilted and looking surprisingly innocent, even to me who knows better.

I love being used to make Sasuke jealous. But honestly the little emo guy doesn't seem to give a single shit.

But I just nod at Sakura an make her some medium rare beef, while Ino stabs me harder in the ribs, continuing to hang off my arm. This was exhausting. All for free barbeque? Not worth it. Definitely not worth it.

My fans loved it though. One even had a camera.

As I reached for Sakuras open mouth another pair of lips went around my chopsticks. I was expecting Naruto, who was perpetually in love with Sakura, but instead it was sasuke. Everyone gave him startled looks. But he just continued on eating his food, with no explanation.

"Awww, Sasuke-kun wants me to feed him toooo?" I leer poking my fingers into the middles off my cheeks and jutting my bottom lip out at Sasuke. His eyes move to mine in a flash of anger. "Oh no? I guess he doesn't. I'll just continue to feed the beautiful Ino and Sakura." I grab a clump off rice and bring it towards Ino's mouth.

Chopsticks move to intercept mine, but I swooped and placed the food into her mouth.

I can feel the girls beaming at Sasuke's jealousy.

"Sasuke-kun if you want me to feed you just say so. I really don't mind." I tell him in the condescending way parrents talk to their young. "Lets seee...Grilled tomato slice" I grab onto a slice of tomato. "Open up!"

And I pushed him to far. In one quick motion he throws his chop stick at my head like senbon. I knock them out of the air with my own, just narrowly dodging a fist aimed at my face. Instead of throwing my chop sticks I fling the tomato at him.

Had it been a kinfe or senbon it would have gone straight for his head...which is also what he assumed, he dodged quickly to the left and down.

And splat, one circular tomato slice slapped onto the middle of his face.

The whole resturant was errily silent, until the loud booming laughter of Naruto and I started an uproar off laughter, and cries from the peanut gallery.

Sasuke threw the Tomato aside then pushed out of the restaurant.

Even though I knew this would come back to haunt me...

Oh my god that was hilarious.

.

.

"I have signed you guys up to part take in the chunin exams." Asuma told us mid training. The rest were working on their family jutsu's while I had been trying to meditate, and be zen.

So I had thought of food the hole time...

Soooo hungry.

"YES! WE WILL ROCK THAT EXAM!" Ino exclaims wit a strange jumpy/fist pump.

"We are probably the lowest skill leveled team of our year." Shika truthfully states. "Never mind more experienced teams." Valid point.

"It sounds like its pretty dangerous." Choji nervously opened a new bag of chips.

"Yeah, why would you sign us up...we kind of suck in fights." I said bluntly. "We haven't been able to figure out a single battle strategy that would actually work." Asuma sensei just lit up a smoke and leaned against his tree smiling at us. I liked the guy allot, he was a good Sensei, my only complaint being he didn't push us to hard...well me...he didn't push me very hard.

"Yeah, with Shin the team dynamic's don't work he is close range, we are mid ranged." Shika said with my usual bluntness.

"Way to make me feel like a misfit!" I half jokingly state. My brother just shrugs, because sadly the statement is true. "Well I can summon waves, I could probably summon water, then freeze it, then you can trap them, and ino can mind switch, or choji could human boulder them." I argue.

"Yeah that would work, but you cant freeze water." Shika argued back. Fair point. "Can you drop the air temperature to instantly freeze the water, without killing the person or us?" I thought about it, if anything froze that fast it would most likely kill what ever human got stuck in the ice, and our lungs would definitely not handle it.

"Okay well, I can erect walls, create shadows for you." I say abandoning my last stupid idea.

"and then what? Hang back for the rest?"

"Well if there was a struggle I could help fight." Hanging back while they did all the work did blow though.

"you would hate that." Shika noted, and I couldn't argue. "See we cant even work as a team yet." Now all of a sudden I wanted to dis agree with Shika.

"Thats okay. Shin has to be signed up Solo anyways." Asuma said already on his third smoke. I took a moment to wonder how he hadn't died a tobacco related death yet.

"Wait why is he solo?" Ino asks the question I should have been asking. A small part of me felt like I was being kicked from the team.

"Because you cant enter a team of four it would be an unfair advantage, so he will be doing the exam completely solo." Asuma explained.

"Yeah but why him?" choji asked. Another question i should have been asking.

"So that Ino-Shika-Cho stays together." Shika provided and Asuma made a clicking noise with hiss mouth to signal Shikamaru was correct in his guess. "wouldn't it be just as unfair to make him do the exam solo?"

"The Hokage seems to think he has an unfair advantage no matter what, with or without you guys." I guess that makes sense, I have replenish able chakra, good hearing, good instincts which make hand to hand fighting simple-ish, I am good at tracking. But I cant do jutsu's, that were . Even Genins could do jutsu's.

.

.

I sat cross legged in one of the nara training grounds. One dad said I could destroy how ever I pleased. My seals get out off hand sometimes. But instead of physical training- since I found out about the exam- I had been training my mind.

I knew one part off the exam would be held in the forest of death. And I over heard earlier today while droping off my dads lunch that their would be a written test, which was a test of how well we could...cheat. Aka "Recon"

Anyway, I wanted to be able to shift in the forest, since as a fox I could track and move more silent then as a human. But i also didn't want to have a clouded mind. It wasn't called forest of death for nothing.

Also I was trying to think up a seal that would make me able to see other peoples answers. I couldn't find such a seal in any of the books in my clearance so, I guess I'd have to make one.

Meditating isn't going well.

"Hey kid how is it going?" I opened my eyes to see Asuma approaching me. He smelt weird...like paper...pencil shavings...after shave.

Asuma doesn't shave.

"Thats a pretty horrible henge." I say dryly. Asuma started laughing menacing like in a deep gravel voice. I had to admit I was mildly disturbed as his face slowly morphed into a tall sickly pale man's with a long beard down to his exposed belly button.

This guy clearly didn't shave either. I closed my eyes as he came closer, he was almost on top of me when I spread ink across the ground and the mud surrounded the man so just his head was showing. I touched the lump that was now the man, and a fire spread across the dirt solidifying it, then promptly going out.

"See you later Iruka" I ask pressing my thumb to his forehead and spread a tiny ink splotch into it and the disguise fell away to reveal Shika's old teacher caught in my trap.

.

.

As it turned out Shika had someone, try to force him to tell secret information, but Shika somehow figured out it was also his old teacher, shadow Paralysed him, and forced him to tie himself to a pole...rather...close to the women's hot springs.

Once we swapped story's we had realised that it was most likely a test, since Iruka had higher clearance then Shika, its not like he could tell him information Iruka didn't already know.

And I didn't get to see what Iruka was testing me with. Maybe I would find him and ask him what the end of the test was.

On a funnier note Ino had a "pervert" Try to grab her, which she promptly flipped saaid person to the ground, and stomped him in a rather...painful part of the body.

She didn't know about the test but she certainly passed.

It seemed Iruka had had enough abuse from us Choji hadn't gotten a test at all.

So I thought that this whole meditating thing would be easy, I love doing nothing, but as it would appear, I can do nothing but stay still for hours at a time, but I find it frustratingly difficult to think about one thing for a length of time longer then five minuets, never mind thinking of nothing at all.

And I read this journal thing that people- when they meditated could reach into their mind, and look around. Which is what I was aiming for, but I lack that concentration.

But I had created a seal where I could create camera's and a feedback center. So the plan was to some how get the camera runes onto different parts of the ceiling, that would appear of the feedback rune. So it was like live television that lasted about an hour so far. I might be able to get it to play longer, and you couldn't take the feedback rune fifteen feet away from the camera runes.

And I wouldn't have created that unless I had spent hours trying to meditate.

"Shika, we should go talk with the team quickly before bed." I say casually to Shika as our family finishes up our food. Shika doesn't ask why, but plays along.

"Your right, knowing Ino she is freaking out trying to pack everything into her bag. What a drag." Mom giggles and dad even smiles. Well they know one of us know something we shouldn't and are about to share said knowledge with out team.

"Shin did you figure out the shifting problem? I'd rather you stay human for the exams if you haven't" Dad tells me in a stern voice. I turn a bit in my chair so they can see my back and lift up my pony tail careful not to ruin my mothers braids. On the base of my neck is a twelve trigram rune.

"This will keep my natures balanced enough for me to shift between forms." I turn back around and lift up my shirt to show them a six trigram rune. "And this keep my clothes on when I shift into a human, so I can stop flashing everybody."

Pleasedontaskifitstestedpleasedontaskifitstested.

"Looks good. Okay you two run off, tell your friends what you need to then get a long rest." Mom says shooing us with her hand. We all just smile knowingly then head off to Ino and Choji's.

.

.

"So your saying the first test is to see how well we can gather information under surveillance." Ino asks.

"Yes, and I thought we could just use Ino's mind transfer, but that may take to much time, or since the people watching will know who you are, you might get caught." The three of them nod.

"So do you have another idea?" Shika asks. "Or did you call us here to say we are screwed?"

"I made these seal here; watch." I place the feed back seal on the inside of my wrist, then grab a pebble and a camera rune onto it, it take a few moments for the picture tto appear onto my wrist.

"Whoa!" Choji exclaims. "Its a camera."

"How does it work?" Ino asks looking into the pebble.

"well you know our coms? How we all connect to a certain channel and we can hear each other? Well this is like that, the camera seal is on a certain frequency receiving everything it see's and the feedback seal is on the same and is also receiving everything the camera is. We will set up two camera's on the roof, before people settle down, and we will have two receaivers on our wrist."

"Shin everyone blanked out." Ino told me blandly sitting in the grass. "as long as it works, which it does its fine." I tried not to pout. I mean its not like I didn't spend a solid two days trying to make this. Besides I am going in solo, I could have not even shared it with them.

"Everyone meet in front of the academy tomorrow I will draw the runes on your wrists then." I say excitement gone from my voice.

"Well I need to go pack." Ino announces.

"Just pack weapons and food pills. You can't have to much on you." Shika tells her.

"What about chips?" Choji asks, amusement drips back into me watching my brother sweat drop at our teams antics.

.

.

"Hey guys. What are you up to?" Asuma sensei asks magically appearing beside us as I finish Choji's runes. "Matching Tattoos why wasn't I invited?" He asks grabbing Ino's wrists and inspecting the black ink.

"They are friendship bracelet...things." Ino provides. Asuma just smiles and drops Ino's wrist.

"Alrightie then. Shin you will be in a private room for your test." Asuma tells me. "Have fun, I have to go do jounin things." He says grinning wider.

Yeah I'm sure those things involve Kurenai sensei.

"Shin! The plan is ruined!" Ino squeals once Asuma is out of ear shot.

"You will probably have a completely different test." Shika Deduces, Choji helpfully opens a new bag a chips and happily munches down.

"It's fine...it's fine..." I was freaking out. "Okay I will place the runes on people, smart people, and resourcefully people who can cheat. Sakura!" I decide. "Oh and Hinata, she has the eye thingies."

We enter the waiting room, and if I hadn't been looking for two specific people I may have been daunted by the scary people that filled the room.

"SASUKE KUN!" Ino yells attaching her self to said boy. Where there is Sasuke there is Sakura. Sure enough getting ready to yell at Ino is the Pink haired girl.

"Sakura! You look nervous." I grabe her shoulders hopefully in a comforting way. She stares at me wide eyed. I have to place it where no one will notice. "You should wear your hair up, it's prettier that way." I tell her holding her jaw, on the bottom of her jaw I place the rune, at least when she looks forward you could see her paper. I swiftly leave her there clearly confused, and check my wrist, a clear view of her feet, thank god she has no chest.

Hinata's team showed up next.

"Fox, you." Akamaru said. It was hard interperting his barks while he was an intelligent animal, he couldn't really communicate with other animals well.

"Hey Akamaru, this test is about cheating. You can get your owner the answers right?" I ask, though...in fox, it was weird speaking in my Fox voice, it wasn't like a dog where they bark it was just weird cackling which sounded like laughing. But Akamaru would be able to fully understand, and best of all no one else could.

"Yeah I can..." He barks back.

"Can I put a seal on you that would help my team? Either that or I'm going to have to stick it on Hinata's chest." The dog relays this to Kiba, and I realise everyone in the room is silent and watching. "Tell him not to give anything away, just nod or shake his head."

Slowly Kiba nods, but I can tell he wants to ask a million questions. Probably like, why does Hinata's chest have anything to do with it.

I reached up and pet Akamaru, neither one of us were comfortable with the situation, but it was a good cover for placeing a small camera rune on his forehead, thankfully I could make it small enough it looked like a splotch of ink. I moved away and checked my wrist just long enough to see it worked, and the picture came up clear.

Our friends and the rest of the room watched the exchange a bit confused.

"So do you think your going to make it?" Shika asked helpfully moving the conversation along. That whipped our competitive friends into a frenzy. Shika came to stand next to me and whispered so low it would have sounded like a breath to everyone with normal hearing.

"Place the runes on everyone else." I sighed deeply. I knew he was right, it wouldn't be fair to use them for answers then not give them the same advantage. I casually walked to Naruto's side.

"Carry on like nothing is happening." I whispered then coughed. I grabbed his wrist quickly setting the seal. "Look at it in the test." Thankfully the over active ninja did as I said and acted as though nothing happened. I went through placing the runes on everyone though I had to be more careful when the white haired ninja arrived.

At one point Naruto started screaming to the whole room, but it took most of my concentration to place the runes while not being noticed, so I didn't pay attention. Placing Sasuke's rune was the problem. I whispered for him to act natural but when I looked at his wrist I saw it was covered by arm warmers.

Seriously who wore arm warmers in winter.

"Sorry about the stain." I whispered as I spread the ink across the fabric, but after a few moments the pictures showed up so at least I knew it worked even without touching skin.

"ALL RIGHT LISTEN UP!" A burly voice yelled, I looked towards it. Hey it was the big scary guy who had scars all-over his face. I liked him.

.

.

When they said I would be in a private room they meant private room. Me alone with Kakashi Sensei, sitting right across from me, on the other side of the school, way more then fifteen feet away.

"You have ten minuets, of me closing my eyes, to find a way to cheat off the papers in the big room. And you can't just write the answers on your wrist or a watter bottle. I'll check" He said in a bored tone, then took out a book and leaned back in his chair. "Oh starting now." I didn't need to be told twice.

Making my way to the other side of the school I formulated a plan.

So I placed the reciever for the camera on Sakura on one side of the wall, then a new camera zoomed into focus on it...then a receiver ten feet away, and another camera.

Get the idea? Its like one of those mirror tricks people used, except all the way to the other side of the school. I went back into my room.

Kakashi looked at me then back to his book.

"Are you reading porn?" I ask grabing the front of his books. "Your literally reading porn as I write this test?" He simply raises his eyebrow at me.

"Do you have a problem with that?" He asks as I sit in my chair.

"No, maybe it will make it easier to cheat." I say smiling as the live video showed up on the front of his book. He may have felt a flair of chakra as I touched it, but seeing as I use nature magic not many people could pick up on that small portion of nature chakra being used. But now that it was running it was undetectable.

"I highly doubt that. But as of right now you can start."

Good old Sakura wasn't even looking at her wrist for answers, I quickly copied what she put, not looking at the questions or the answers.

Naturally the brainy-ac finished in the first half hour, so there for I did too...well about several minuets later, but you get the idea. Only then did I realise the tenth question was blank on both tests.

"What's with question ten its blank?" Kakashi looks up from his book and at me.

"Oh that. Well before you receive that, we know that you helped the rookie nine... Cheat. So here is how it's going to go. Which team are you going to rat on and get kicked out of the exam. You can't say no team, because then team eight will be kicked" He paused probably for dramatic affect. "So which team will it be?"

"I could say your team you know?"

"Then thats who you pick." He say nonchalantly puting his book cover down on the table to give me a hard look. Scare tactic.

"Well, honestly Shika or Choji didn't really want to do the exam anyways. We just have very scary mothers, and an Ino. Soooo." This time it's my turn to dramatically pause. "What on earth are you talking about? If I was smart enough to help everyone cheat, I wouldn't. That just mean more competition for us." I said picking dirt from under my nails.

"Don't you think Ino will be mad that yuo the reason she will be dropped from exam?" Kakashi prods.

"Are your joking? She would kill me if I did anything to get her Sasuke-kun kicked out. That is if I actually helped everyone cheat. But I didn't so this question is redundant." the white haired ninja eye smiles.

"Then what is the rune on your wrist?" Kakashi asks pointing motioning to my wrist under the table. I pull it out for him to see the inactive rune.

"This is...a friendship braclet. Ino's idea."

"This is your last chance to rat one of them teams out, or your team- excluding you will be kicked." excluding me...then I would continue on even though it would be my fault they got kicked.

Then again...if I ratted anyone else out, I'd feel horrible. My help would have gotten them kicked, when the other teams would have done fine with out me. Except team seven, team seven didn't have dogs bugs or opal eyes to help them. They had no ability's besides from Sakura with her big brain.

I couldn't feel bad for ratting on them.

They weren't prepared without my help.

But Ino would kill me, and on my earlier statement, neither Shika or Choji really wanted to do the exam.

"I didn't help anyone cheat." I say in what I hoped was a confident voice. We waited, starring each other in the eyes...or eye.

"You pass the test." He eye smiles.

"Wasn't there a final question?" I ask.

"no th final question was to test loyalty and teamwork. Since your not on a team we can't test your loyalty anyway else." He tells me non chalantly. "You didn't rat anyone out, even though your team, and em...owner? Brother? Would be kicked out of the exam."

"...that's not really testing my loyalty. I could just be a total dick, and dont care who gets kicked out, and only care about myself." Their logic was very flawed.

"Oh really? You were fine with not ratting anyone out when you thought it would be your team and you being kicked, but when I said you would stay no matter what you had to think about it. I bet you were even planning to feign injury to get out of the second part." the weird thing is I was. I was going to accidently smash my ankle in the door or something. "Also Asuma and your Dad said you care more about Shika then yourself. So we had to design the question to affect him more then you."

"Those traitors." I mumble, Kakashi chuckles.

"So how did you cheat. I felt a flair of chakra when you came in, you never checked your wrist. Half the time you were starring at me."

"If I answer will you tell me how you guys found out I cheated?" I suspected Asuma and my father had a part to play in that as well.

"Your father and Asuma saw you placing the seals on every one. And your father watched you create the seal itself." hmmm so he told on me.

"I wasn't looking at you I was looking at your book." I told him flipping over his porn book to show him the cover, on the little screen you could see Naruto on the table and he appeared to be screaming.

"Your father said the seal only seemed to work within a twenty meter radius." he said touching the screen.

"It's actually fifteen, and did he also tell you the preferred colour of my underwear?" I ask sassily. The ninja across from me didn't seem amused. "If you look in the hallways you will see ten foot spaced seals all across the hall." I looked down at my wrist now empty, and a few seconds later the image on the book changed to simply an image of the camera seal on a white wall.

"The seals disappear after an hour." I told him when he watched it curiously. I presented my wrist to him, showing clean white skin where it used to have side by side runes. "I thought it would be good for recon, but it has such little range and life, though Solo missions they might be useful." I shrug.

"Stick it on your back..." Kakashi trails off and I nod.

"Maybe someone else could smooth out the kinks. It's kind of crappy." I could make seals just fine, but they always lacked something. They always sucked.

"Well I'm pretty sure this one is going straight to forbidden or high level clearance." Kakashi told me. "Come on you need to get to the second test."

.

.

"So what was your tenth question?" Ino asked as we stood around waiting for our names to be called for the next part of the test.

"I had to choose which team to out of the rookies to kick out of the exam. And if I didn't pick your three would have been kicked." I told them laying back into the grass.

"Who did you pick?" Choji asked.

"Well, Kiba's team would have been fine without my help, but Sakura's team would have failed or at least scrambled to find a way to cheat, but then I thought about how pissed Ino would be if I got her Sasuke-kun kicked from the Chunin exams. So I chose not to answer."

"I WOULD have killed you."

"What a drag. If only we had been kicked out, then we could just watch the clouds in our backyard." shika sighed. Team eight was called and they went up to get their scroll.

"LISTEN UP! The proctor who had got her face licked with a creepy tongue yelled. "Shin here is solo, so to make it fair, we are giving him four scrolls. Two earth two heaven." She dropped the scrolls onto my stomach.

"That doesn't sound fair. Your making it so all these people will target me." I sweat drop. The purple haired girl just chortals and walks away. Everyone in the waiting field eye me, a few of them walk by and sniff the air around me trying to pick up my scent.

"Do you have a plan?" Shika asks.

"Yes. Well a loose plan. I'll ffind you guys, give you what ever scroll you need, so just lay low somewhere. Now excuse me while I try to create a rune that will mask my scent." I run towards Kiba. "Kiba, I need you to tell me when you can't smell my scent!" He turns and gives me a weird look.

"What?" He asks, as he does a random person bumps into me and sniffs my hair then leaves. "Okay." He nods.

A huge part of sent is perspiration. In my head I draw up a rune to cancel the smell of my sweat then place it onto my hip bone. I was starting to get quite the collection of runes on my body.

"I can still smell you but it's allot fainter. I'd probably still be able to track you though." I nod. I tweak the seal, nullifying the smell on my clothes skin hair/soon to be fur. Even my breath.

Or thats was the hope. The rune once simple turned into a complex monster, I quickly place it.

"Everyone to your gates!" The proctor yells.

"Shin we have to g- I can't smell you at all. It's like your not there!" Kiba whisper yells, which defeats the purpose of whispering, but thankfully no one heard. Though I noticed the few people who tried to smell me whip their heads in my direction. They noticed to.

"Thanks, if you want I can find you and give out one of my extras." I tell him patting his sshoulder.

"No. We will do it ourselvs." Shino says in his freaky monotone voice.

"Yeah we would rather do this part ourselves." Kiba agrees. I nod, then jog to my gate. Number one.

"Ready kid?" Anko asks through a big smile.

"Well I mean, everyone in there will probably be looking for me and I am on my own sure, ready as I'll ever be." I stop for a second. "Well thats not true." I pull up my shirt activating the seal that will magically keep my clothes on the I pull up my pant leg and push chakra into my shifting rune.

"Now I am ready." I tell her. Once againn in my fox form.

.

.

No one was on my trail, but it didn't take me long to find Shika, Ino's and Choji's. Follow the smell of perfume and barbeque chips.

The weird part about all the animals and other deadly things around here was that they seemed to leave me alone. A bumblebee about the size of Choji flew by me like i was a plant.

About half way to Shika and the others I realised that they probably weren't attacking me because to them I probably felt like a tree or another run of the mill animal. To them I didn't feel like an intruder or hostile. Nature chakra for the win.

So this seal to keep me balanced appeared to be working, but it also kept me so balanced and Zen that when I saw a bear the size of Choji's dad I shrugged and continued walking.

I'm assuming I would not have done that had I not had this seal activated.

Shika's scent began to move further away from me. I told them not to move! I ran faster gathering more chakra around me to boost my legs. It wasn't something I had done much before, but it was exhilarating. I already was a fast runner especaily in this form, but with the boost I could barely make out my surroundings.

The ground around me lifted up and I was scooped into a net trap.

I'd like t blame this on the shifting problem, but it was really me forgetting to check for other scents around me. If i had I would have smelt three people hiding a few feet away.

"It's just a fox." One guy moaned. They had waterfall head bands, and looked about sixteen maybe older.

"it's his chakra signature though." one guy said spastically. Shika's scent continued to move further and further away, while the guys bellow me bickered.

"It's to calm to be a normal fox, look normally they would thrash around after being caught." the one who sensed chakra signatures noted. "I'm telling you I couldn't forget his chakra signature, it was really weird, and this fox has the exact same one." Shika's origin scent traveled out of my radius, but I didn't worry to much since I could just pick up his trail then follow that, what did worry me was that their three unknown scents seemingly following them.

Enough playing around. I pushed chakra into my rune, and thirty seconds later was cutting the ropes.

"I told you it was him!" the one guy exclaimed as I jumped down. I punched him in the face then donkey kicked one of his friends, infinitely grateful I had made that clothing rune. I quickly bolted towards Shika stopping for a moment to summon a wave to wash them away, or at least startle them. Earth spikes flew at me causing me to loose my balance, I grabbed onto a near by tree, the three were following closely behind. The one that I had donkey kicked was doing hand signs.

Think think think.

I pressed my plant growth seal to the tree, since I had, had quite a bit of practice it took moments. The three and its branches grew in unhealthy twirly and sideway ways, since I didn't bother to just put life chakra in, it wasn't alive and healthy the bark quickly dried and the leaves fell. So I set it on fire.

I did this with three more trees.

It startled them enough that I somehow made trees grow then start a raging forest fire that they stopped, just long enough for me to shift forms then hightail it away.

Sadly three completely different scents were following me, and fast. They were surrounding me and closing in.

I pushed chakra into my seal and once human grabbed a handful off rocks leaves pieces of wood, anything easily throw able.

I threw the rocks and where they landed unstable, and probably unsafe rock pillars emerged, I stepped then threw, stepped then threw, each pillar high then the other. The last one tipped over, I was so high up I could see the tower, and see Hinata, Kiba and Shino walking in. I rode the rock pillar down then threw a piece of bark down and jumped onto a new pillar before crashing to my death.

My pressures who had followed me up were in a bit of a predicament though. I waved then booked it. Only to find the three guys from before. In a last ditch effort I held up a pebble with a particularly nasty rune on it.

"I can turn the ground beneath you into lava right now." I tell them holding eye contact. "Dont believe me?" I threw the pebble to the side and a ten foot circle of lava appeared. The three put their hand up in surrender and walked away.

And thats when I got sucked into the ground. Well half sucked in, in the heat of the moment I touched the ground turning it to mud, the person using the jutsu was surprised enough to let my foot go, I hopped out of the mud hole and started baked the ground solid the way I had with Iruka.

I knew the jutsu user would be able to get out, but it bought me ten minuets to get away.

So I ran for ten minuets, jumping into a tree to catch my breath.

I needed out of the forest, this is what it was going to be like the whole time. All team trying to find me. I needed to get Shika and the others and hightail it out of here. The sun had set and risen again in the time it took me to deal with those three teams.

I sat cross legged on the branch filling myself with nature chakra. I felt bitter chakra in the air that made me shiver. I would hate to run into who ever was giving off that signature.

After replenishing my chakra I checked all my runes, to make sure they were intact, I re applied my scent rune, then stifled my chakra signature...I hoped.

Hopefully it would blend into the background now.

I was covered in mud. All my muscles felt like jelly, I had a chakra head ache from taking in and loosing so much chakra. This head ache had only happened once before, when I had spent two days up creating a seal to grow moms backyard back, then used said seal fifteen times to actually grow back her backyard.

I had thought that was bad but that didn't compare to how my head felt now.

I opened my pack and grabbed a handful of food pills. They tasted horrible and bitter but I knew better then to not eat at all. After downing those I touched the trunk of the tree I was currently sitting in, one of the first runes I made was supposed to be a high-pressure water spout.

Instead it had ended up being just a tiny spout of water, the kitchen tap had had more pressure, and the rune ran out after thirty four seconds. Later I had perfected the seal, but I kept this failed seal around since it was good for a drink of water.

When the tiny spout came out I positioned my face by it and drank the water greedily for thirty four seconds.

After a moment more I headed off to find Shikamaru's scent.


	10. Chapter 10-A Fox's Anxiety

**Guys I'm so sorry this chapter is like FREAKISHLY long. 10, 000 words long.**

 **its pretty funny because I have maybe 15 chapters made up and I'm already writing in shippuden, I didn't think this story was long, but the chapters are more or less 10,000 words long. if anyone find crazy long chapters annoying leave some reviews or pm me and I will separate the chapters.**

 **On a side note, in this chapter Shin will simply summarize things that happened instead of me doing a play by play, hopefully you don't find this to annoying.**

 **Also sorry I dont leave many authors notes, but I'm a horribly awkward person, and never know what to say.**

 **Enjoy this chapter! happy reading! ^.^**

* * *

Finding Shika's scent...easy.

Fending off two teams at once. Yeah that sucked. Two grass teams came at me with literally every thing they had.

And boy did they have allot. Water spouts and waves, and wind tunnels, and rock spikes.

It took about forty minuets of me jumping around and avoiding them, for the past while I hadn't been using jutsu's because compared to what I could do with seals it was kind of lacking, but in this fight I spat more fire balls then medically recommended, before my trap had been set.

I let one hit me in the side...okay he hit me in the side and I took it as an opportunity to play dead. Then all cautiously came forward to look at me, thats when I sprung the trap. Domino inferno seals is what I would call it.

One by one they were surrounded my blue hot flamed, I rolled away but my arm got burnt, the fabric of my shirt melted.

I paid no mind to the pain. Just kidding I yelped and wined and babied the arm until I reached a near by tree I pressed a seal to it and made it grow into the fire.

Then I watched as the six kids inside tried to summon waves and wind to blow it out.

The water worked but they were reactivating seals, so once it burnt out fresh blue fire erupted from them.

I waited a bit longer, and sure enough the oxygen had burned away and the six had passed out.

I waited another ten seconds and the flames went out. Except the tree, it still burnt. I'm not sure what its job was. But it felt important at the time. I went over to the grass ninja's body they were breathing and hot, but they were all still alive. I grabbed their scrolls, not that I needed them but they pissed me off.

At this point I was hobbling to Shika's scent.

They were in a clearing, that smelt like...death. They were sitting around a small fire and Ino was cutting Sakura's hair.

Because why not. I've just constantly been fighting people for the past threes days, why not be doing each others hair and sitting around a campfire.

"Shin! Are you okay?" Shika asked running to my side.

"uuuhhh I burnt my arm, broke a few ribs, I think I twisted my ankle, someone tore the left leg of y pants off, I havn't eaten for two days becuase I have literally not had time to sit down." I reported as he lowered me to the ground, I took it a step further and laid my head in his lap.

"Your face...is pretty bruised up shin." Naruto said sticking his face into mine. Well he didn't look to hot either.

"well you want to know what? Why don't you try fighting six teams of three for the past three days and tell me how your face looks. Also I'm pretty sure I saw a humongous snake. And a man with a long neck but I couldn't be sure becuase at the time I was stuck in a genjutsu." I complained loudly.

"It took you three days to have six fight?" Naruto asked.

"Well three of those teams kept tracking me, then I'd have to lead them away from Shika's scent before dealing with them." i explained. "Hey pass me that rock." I ask naruto. He passed my the palm sized rock and I press my water seal to it, then drink up.

"So you were all those forest fires?" Shika asked smiling.

"And all the random floods?" Choji asked.

"Oh were you also those big stone pillars?" Ino piped in.

"And those blue flames?" Sakura chimed in.

"Yes yes. Those were me. My head hurts." i quickly sniffed the air. "Shit come on guys we have got to go." everyone looked at me.

"You look like you can barely walk, Naruto and Sasuke are both injured." Sakura argued. I looked the two boys over. They did look a little worse for wear.

"Well then, we have three water fall and mist heading our way." I thought quickly. "Okay Sakura what is your specailty?" because truth be told I didn't know what she did.

"I...uh...I" She stampered.

"Never mind. You and your team go chill in that tree you protect them." She nodded.

"No way I want to fight!" Naruto screamed.

"No, dont argue. If you guys get more hurt your hard to carry back. If I get more hurt I'm light go into the tree!" Both of them looked at me like they wanted to argue.

"LISTEN TO SHIN! Get in that tree!" Ino yelled pulling both of them into the tree, sakura nicely followed. I summoned an earth wall around them closing them in.

"Okay shin what's the plan?" Shika asked.

"Your the boss now, whats the plan?" I ask him. He was a good tactician like our father, smart and twenty moves ahead. I went with my gut and improved, it could keep me alive, but not a team.

"Tell me about them."

"guy cant we just run from them?" Choji asked but we all ignored him.

"The mist are tricky, they have a powerful genjutsu they will try to start with. I can smell where they are though, and they learnt that real fast so I don think they will use that. But they do use the earth swimming technique, but their hand to hand sucks. The grass are jutsu jocks, earth wind and water. All C-rank but a bitch to fight." I report to him.

"Okay who is going to arrive here first?" Shika asks.

"The mist from the west in three minuets, and the grass ten-ish from north east though their pace kind of fluctuates."

"Okay, Shin make two lava pools spaced ten feet aapart to the west, the heat will force them to surface, then we can do our thing. Then land mind the north east of the feild."

"Okay but I'm making them nonlethal." I tell him and he just nods. "Wait...they are both stopped. Now they are changing direcctions completely."

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.

The Grass Pov.

"Wait it's ...him." the three ninjas shudder.

"He is protecting two other teams. Thats not fair."

"He is suicidal." they all nod in agreement.

.

.

"Thats so weird. They have been trying for three days, why stop now." I wondered out loud.

"Probably because you have six people with you now " Shika says. "What a drag I had seven different battle stratigys planned out." He sighs. "Maybe you should free them." I turn to look at the tree I had trapped team seven in.

"Oh right. I had six people on me and one of the sound teams came at me still. Though they left right away, it got pretty confussing for all partys, when the grass teams were ffighting me and fighting the sound." I laughed even though it really wasn't funny, there was a moment when I thought one of the sounds was going to kill one of the grass, but a Kunai thrown handle first to his hand loosened his hold enough for the little grass ninja to get away and kick the shit out of the sound.

"I think your slap happy shin." Ino giggles. "OH MY GOD!" Ino yells as I place my hands the wall around the tree, Naruto was banging and screaming through it like the annoying little booger he was.

"Whats wrong!" I ask quickly inspecting her limbs.

"your arm looks so grosssss" she cries wiggling away from me. Shika and I sweat drop.

"Thanks for that, I really wanted to add heart attack to all the other injurys I have." I brought down the wall the glanced at my burnt arm which I had been avoiding.

She was right.

It looked gross. Five massive blisters covered it.

"Okay Sasuke on my back, Naruto on Choji's lets go people, who knows when more people will show up."

"I'm not getting on your back." Sasuke stated outright.

"Then get on Ino's back." I said dead panned.

"No."

"Well I'm not waiting for your slow crippled ass, my back oor Ino's back." Ino didn't look thrilled about carrying him either.

"What about Shikamaru?" Naruto asked. Shika glared at Naruto.

"Shika couldn't run and carry him, and we will be running."

"Sasuke just get on his back." Naruto nudged. And with much Sass Sasuke jumped onto my back. I winced then cried out when he touched my arm.

"Touch my burn why dont you! Just stick your arms around my neck like a normal human, or I will carry you like a baby." He listened and quickly at that threat. My ribs felt like fire, almost as bad as my burns now.

"Shin...are you coming?" Ino asked.

"I need to take in chakra give me a second." I filtered in only life chakra and let that pool into my body. The pain lessoned quickly and felt awake again.

.

.

The trip to the tower was uneventful, there was quite a few teams still scrambling about, but they seemed to give us a wide birth. Though there was a guy who seemed to be waiting for us to stop but wee didn't we just ran straight to the tower, when Sakura complained for a rest we just told her to stfu.

But then we realised she had also not slept this whole time and was hurt, so she was on Ino's back.

When we arrived I'm sure the people in the camera room had quite a laugh seeing team eight carrying team seven.

Okay so basically we opened the heaven earth scrolls Iruka popped out of team sevens- Assuma popped out of ours. Iruka did all the talking.

Basically if your strong you need to be smart, and if your smart you need to be strong. I don't know something like that., and thats what it means to be a Chunin.

Blah blah blah.

I was taken to the infirmary where I promptly fell face first into the bed and slept.

.

.

When I woke Kiba was howling with laughter about the fact that we carried team seven in. Also that I passed out.

"I didn't pass out I fell asleep thank you very much." I groan as I stiffly sit up. "They didn't even heal meee." I complain.

"My sister is coming in a few hours to fix you." I nod at Kiba's word then happily drink the glass of water at my bedside. "You totally passed out." He chortled.

"You had it easy, you got here on the first day. That forest was hell for me. And these guys, though I still don't know howw they got ruffed up." I say pointing at team seven strewn across the cots like my own team.

That's when the big long story came out.

But I'm going to break it down for you.

Basically they got attacked by a big gust of wind, Naruto was thrown away. Sasuke and sakura were then attacked by this women who scared Sasuke so bad he had to stab himself in the leg, they then ran away, and then the women found them, the women crawled out o her skin and was a man.

Infact one of the evilist ninjas to come out of Konoha, Orochimaru *cue gasps* Sasuke got scared again, Sakura passed out again.

After being eaten by a snake Naruto came to the rescue, and the rest of it is clearly Naruto lying to make himself sound cool, because I highly doubt he karate flipped a snake the size of the whole forest.

Basically all you have to know is this Orochimaru guy is a lunatic, who for some reason wants Sasuke.

Story time over.

Its kind of hard to top that story.

They fought a sanin.

I looked around the room at the other Genins. One of the grass teams were laying in beds at the end of the massive barraks. There were the sound ninja's, but that was it.

"Are we all that made it?" I asked.

"There is also the sand trio but they are in seaperate barrack and there is another leaf team but I think they are in the dinning room." Ino told me.

"the one Sand ninja with the red hair is dangerous. Stay away from him." Kiba warned.

"Why?" Choji asked through a mouth full of chips.

"He crushed a guy with sand." Kiba told us with a haunted look in his eyes.

"That grass team doesn't have any scrolls but they needed medical attention." Shino stated though I'm not sure anyone but me heard. We were all hung up on the 'crushed someone with sand bit.'

.

.

I slept most of the remaining days, on the morning of the fith day my medic came, Hana Inuzuka, Kiba's sister. Last time I saw her I was naked and mostly incoherent.

All the other Genins who made it got called to the main room, but sadly Hana was still healing my arm, then had to heal my ankle which had a hair line fracture.

And perhaps if she had enough chakra she would heal my ribs.

"Do you know if any other teams made it?" I asked her.

"one last Konoha team made it in last minuet, but other than that it was just you six, or seven since you are your own team." She smiled warmly.

"You know you not really like your brother." I comment.

"My brother can be a handful." She chuckles.

"Oh it wasn't an insult to either of you. I used to find him annoying, but as a fox I found everyone annoying all the time, except for my family." She just laughs again.

"Can your seal turn any animal into a human?" she asks looking as the seal on my leg. Then at the no scent on my hip, and the clothing one on my ribs.

"Yes, or at least I think so I only ever tried it on a rabbit. But I don't think I have met another animal who wanted to be human." i say wistfully.

"Why did you want to be human. I always thought it would be more fun to be a dog, or in your case a Fox." I thought bout that.

"Well, even with out being told you were a girl, or even if you didn't know the word for female, you would fundamentally feel like a girl. It's just in your nature." I try to explain. "I knew I was different my whole life, the second I woke up in the forest I felt like it wasn't where I belonged, but with the Nara's it felt better, more...right. Then I was able to understand seals and chakra, and able to make myself talk. Then turn into a human, and it felt right. Sometimes I miss being a fox, but mostly those reasoning's are because I can pee outside and not get in trouble, and no one would force me to eat veggies." Hana laughs at my attempt to lighten thee topic, though its genuine laughter.

"So whats going on out there?" I ask After a series of large bangs reaches the echoing walls of the barrack.

"Preliminary's, to many teams made it to the tower, so they are placing you guys against each other, one on one, and the winners advance." she explains moving onto my ankle.

"Oh well then heal my ankle then I can probably get through a fight..." I say poking at my tender ribs. She told me she knew my anatomy well enough to not have me change into a fox, which was nice.

"The Hokage is giving you a pass." She said smiling. I stared at her...huh.

"Why?" I ask.

"Well we had two anbu following you the whole time, incase you ever looked like you were about to die, since the test was heavily weighted against you." She explained. "And in your fights you injured both of the anbu with your seals, and impressed the two new anbu who were sent to replace them, as you fought nine people, and saved one of your enemy's then created a new seal, stumbled to your friends, then carried them back." She finished taking in a breath. "Something about that impressed them all enough that they decided you would get a pass." i thought about it.

"They do realise when I was fighting all those people, sometimes they were fighting each other, and I was mostly running around and avoiding them, while taking serious damage." I thought about the three days more. "Actually the whole time i was just running away avoiding them all and getting them off Shika's trail, and mine, so I could meet up with them."

"Well I'm just saying what i was told."

"I hope my team makes it." I mumble. I thought more about my time in the forest, it didn't feel impressive, i felt like I fumbled through on luck and stupidity and somehow made it out alive. There was never a plan, and I really just used the same four jutsu seals over and over. Water wave, inferno- then Domino inferno blue seals, plant growth seal, and rock pillar seal. Oh also I used the lava seal to scare away some people.

It was mostly frantically running and screaming "oh my god" my throat hurt both from screaming and the fire balls. Nothing about the three days was smooth calculated or impressive.

"IF it helps you feel better, there is an uneven amount of people in the prelims, so they had to choose on person so get a pass." Hana informs mee with a smile.

Huh, that did make me feel better.

"And they chose you because we watched you fight six diffferent teams." She continues moving to my ribs.

"Well that makes sense." I admit. Though from team sevens storys they should have been watching them, not me fumbling about the forest.

.

.

I ended up being healed ten minuets into the Hokage's speech, just intime to pick a number. I got paired with the one guy with the paint on his face and weird thing on his back. I'm sure Shika would fill me in on his deal.

Shino had a pass for the first round. He ddidn't seem to happy about that.

Shika would be fighting the girl with the large fan, he wasn't to thrilled about fighting a girl again. The rest of my team didn't make it, in fact Sakura and Ino found a way to both loose the match.

I think that requires an amazing amount of suckage on both part, not that I would say that outloud.

Choji had apparently done really good but still got beat.

Also the sand guy almost killed Rock Lee, the kid who had a bowl cut and worse a green spandex. Apparently his taijutsu was really good, and he was so fast using pure strength that the genins could barely track his movement. He still lost to the red haired guy with no eyes brows, and the word on the street was it was unlikely he would ever be a ninja again.

In another morbid high light, Neji, Rock Lee's teammate and Hinata's cousin, almost killed Hinata. So thaat was freaky.

Naruto defeated Kiba by farting in his face.

Sasuke was taken away for medical treatment, which was weird because he had seemed fine for the last two days, he mostly just stayed to himself and yelled at anyone who got close, which seemed like his normal behavior.

Since Shika and I were the only one's on our team who made it to the third stage we were 'one on one' training. But it was just us spending the day with Asuma, Shika would play shoji, I would work out then work on my seals.

Kankuro was a puppet master, I was a funjutsu specialist, there was no specail move that would put the ffight in my faavor instantly, like if Shino was the one fighting him.

It was simply my specailty against his, naturally the plan was to incinerate his puppet.

"Hey Shika?" I say stopping my pushups and sitting cross legged on the grass. Shika and Asuma were intensly focussing on the game of Shoji, clearly Shika was winning, but if Asuma was smart he could give himself a fighting chance in five moves, but he wasn't and Shikaa could counter it easily.

"Whats up?" He asks moving a knight.

"What do you think would happen if touched someones chakra string with pure nature energy?" I ask.

"Well..." The three of us look to the sky all with our own brand of 'thinking' fface on

"Sages can't use sage mode and heal people, because the nature energy wouldn't be balanced." Asuma stated. I nodded allong, it was true, they would turn to rock.

"So then I'd assume the same thing would happen i you charged someone elses Chakra strings with nature energy." Shika finished, I nodded again, already having come to the conclusion.

"Well then scratch that." I go back into plank position and begin doing pushups. "So is this all we are going to do?" I ask struggling through my reps.

"Well do you want me to teach you something?" Asuma asked.

"I'm already working with dad on my shadow jutsu." Shika reported giving me the evil eye. He was probably scared I would make it so he had to do more work.

"Do you have anything you want to teach me?" I ask him raising my eye brows.

"No, i don't know anything about funjutsu, sorry kid. We could spar." He offered.

"Naw. Thats fine." I sigh then fall onto my stomach to the ground. For some reason I thought this would be more exciting.

"I can teach you the body flicker technique." Asuma offers. I lift my head up to get a look t my sensei.

"Really?" I ask.

"Yeah it should be easy enough for you to learn." He shrugs.

.

.

Learn body flicker they said. Should be easy they said.

I collapsed to the ground after five straight hours of trying to hyper speed so fast the it looked like I was teleported.

I got the hyperspeed down.

The control...no not so much.

Asuma had to leave the field every time I tried to do it.

...after a while he just left me. That jerk.

I laid down in the middle of the field panting. All these jounins made it look so easy.

"I'll give you blood pure blood!" A rather scary voice carries on the wind, along with a scent, one of the sand siblings scent. He was walking straight towards me until he was in the clearing I was in. "You?"

'killhimmmm' a voice thrummed weird and whispy like the feeling of chakra.

"his blood is not good."

'killhimmm!' the chakra voice spoke louder.

Okay this is scary. The logical thing to do would be to run very far away. But I knew I couldn't outrun his sand if rock lee couldn't. So i sat in the field trying to act natural.

"Oh hey there, did you want this training field? I just finished up, so you can have it." I tell him trying to smile. The red haired guy stares at me almost bewildered. "Do yu want some water?" I offer my water bottle.

'heissfakeing' the voice tells the boy infront of me. 'killhimmm!' I dont know who is saying those words, but I want to know why he hates me.

The red haired boy comes towards me and grabs the water bottle out of my hands, though he doesn't drink it. This is good. I mean he isn't killing me right.

"I was in the Chunin exams too, though you may not have seen me since I didn't do the prelims. I am Seishin, the one they gave four scrolls then sent me in all by myself. I didn't get to see you in the forest, I was mostly running around trying not to die repeatedly." I nervously rambled. "I do seal work. I figure its only fair you know and tell your brother since I know the basics of he does." I say nervously scratching my neck. The red haired guy barely even registers that I am talking, but I do realise that as long as I talk the chakra voice doesn't say anything.

"I hate my brother." He tells me blandly, making awkward eye contact. Well this is weird.

"My brother is also in the Chunin exams. The one with the black hair that looks like a pineapple. He annoys me sometimes too." I quickly think back and realise there was never a moment i was actually mad or annoyed with him. Guess I'll have to exaggerate something.

"What's he like? What's family like?" He asks as I tried to think of a story.

"Well I was adopted into my family. I have a Dad, he is a jounin. Unlike most Dad's he is really calm, He wants us to be happy no matter what. My Mom stays at home and cleans and cooks which is allot harder than you think. She always wakes us up early and makes us eat veggies. She makes us train and clean things. But she is very loving and concerned with our wellbeing." I say smiling. "Even though my brother annoys me sometimes, he is my bestfriend, the person I can go to for anything. If I feel sad or lonely, he helps. Siblings are cool like that." The boy sits next to me.

"My siblings are scared of me." He tells me, I'm surprised to find that both of our postures are more relaxed.

"Why would they be scared of you, you even have love written on your forehead." I laugh at my own attempt to be funny.

"I'm a demon." He tells me point blank. Well...this escalated rather quickly.

"well I'm a fox." He gives me a questioning look. "No really look" I activate my clothing rune and then my shifting seal, then I'm a fox sitting beside him. "See this is what I was born as." I tell him before shifting back. "Even though my brother didn't understand it at first I explained my feelings and why I wanted to be human, and everything worked out." I shrug. That was almost all a lie but who cares.

"I really am a demon." He repeats gotten over the 'the boy beside me is a fox' thing.

"Are you sure YOUR a demon. Because you look human to me."

'KILL HIM KILLHIM NOW!' the chakra voice screams. The red haired boys face contorts in pain and a sand cloud erupts from the boys barrel thingy on his back.

"Oh can it you creepy demon!" I say annoyed with the weird voice following this poor kid.

'you can hear me?' the voice asks.

"Yeah I can hear you, what are you?" I ask, the boy relaxed and the sand went back into his weird backpack thingie.

"You can hear it?" the red haired guy asked.

"Yeah, its voice travels on the chakra, and I use nature chakra, so I don't know I some how hear it. I can also tell you it isn't you, because you have normal human chakra, and what ever that weird thing is, it has nature chakra." I tell him.

"It's a demon." He says in a daze.

"He kind of reminds me of a racoon. Or at least his chakra feels the way a wild racoons would." I could have just said racoon, I don't think people tame racoons. I mean could happen.

"He is a tailed beast. My father put him in me before I was even born. I killed my mother." he whispers.

"Women die in pregnancy more than we would like, don't blame yourself." I thought about what he said about the tailed beast portion. "So he is a tailed beast? Tailed beast holders are usually chosen as young as possible so its more likely that they will be able to hold the tailed beast. Kind of like how we teach kids to talk right away, and not later on in life because as babies the adapt to things easier." I tell him half wondering where this information was coming from. "also I read that the holders are usually someone close to the Kage of the village, so its less likely for that person to run off with a dangerous weapon inside of them." the red haired guy nods. "I'm not justifying your fathers actions, I'm just trying to explain why he did what he did." I tell him quickly.

"It's weird that I can hear and feel your tailed beast though. We have a tailed beast somewhere in our villiage and I have never sensed it." I said thinking.

"He is constantly in my mind, whispering things, only rarely like right now can I break away from him. And the moment I sleep he takes over me." I purse my lips.

"Here look at this." I turn my head and show him my balancing rune. "This is a rune, it mean its a perminate seal on my body. It balances my natures. Since I am fox and human. Maybe if I tweak it I can make it so he is locked out of your mind." The boy cringed in pain.

"you'd have to work fast." I nodded already tweaking it. Instead of it being an even split of the two different natures inside him, I had to make it so only his humanity ruled. I pressed my hand to the back of his neck, the ink spread, I felt a strong pulse of he tailed beast chakra, and the boy cried out loudly. The seal was set and activated, and the beasts chakra fell from the air, like hitting a mute button. The boy and I starred at each other for several moments, then I realised our faces were really close and my hand was on the back of his neck.

I took my hand away and cleared my throat. "How does that feel?" I ask.

"empty...he isn't there any more..." He says in wonder.

"Well I assure you he is there, but he is locked out of your mind the way he should be. I would get a seals expert to look at your seal though." I tell him.

"Are you not a seals expert?" He asks touching the back of his neck.

"I wouldn't say expert...more like educated Novice. But don't worry about the seal-slash-rune I put on you, that one will work, but I couldn't look at your tailed beast seal." He nods. "Oh by the way what's your name?" I ask remebering that I had been calling him 'the boy' or 'red haired boy' or 'sand guy' which I guess isn't polite.

"Gaara of the sand." He tells me in his emotionless voice. "Yours?" He asks stifly.

"Seishin Nara, but you can call me Shin if you want." I tell him reaching my hand out for a shake.

"Seishin." He says nervously reaching his hand out our skin touches and he look releaved. "Usually my sand doesn't let me touch anyone." He mumbles to me as we take our hands apart.

"Well you wont have to worry about that anymore." I say smiling. "Well...do you want to go eat some food or something?" I ask him. He nods but doesn't look my in the eyes. "What kind of food do you like?" I ask. I don't know why I felt so compelled to help him, or even now why i felt like I needed to help him reach out to his siblings, to help explain why he acted like a psycho and tried to kill people, but I did.

"Barbeque?" He asks still not looking directly at me, and I dare say their was a blush spreading across his face. So he want from raging psychopath to horribly nervous and socially anxious.

"Good choice, Akimichi barbeque is to die for. Come on." I say standing up ignoring the burn in my legs. I reach my hand ut to help him up and he just looks at it oddly. "Take it and I'll help you up." I explain. He puts his fingers in mine, much the way a princess would present their hand to be kissed. Its not typically how this is done but I let it slide. I gently hold his hand and pull him up.

A laugh escapes his lips. "That was fun." He decides. I feel a pang of sadness for this boy, he had never had enough human contact to even know what it felt like to be helped up.

.

.

We sit at a booth table which is more secluded, and I order for the both of us, mostly because when the waitress asked what Gaara wanted he just starred at the table.

When the food arrived Gaara starred at my plate.

"Your meat doesn't look cooked." He comments. As per usual I simply ordered a plate of raw meat, but for Gaara I got him some beef ribs and pork slices, side rice and veggies.

"I'm a fox , in human form I can't really catch a rabbit and eat it whole like usual, so this is a happy medium." I explain cutting into some of the red meat on my plate.

"Why is everyone watching us?" He asks motioning to the store. There was about fifteen women openly staring, and half that trying to be sneaky about looking.

"Oh uh...those are my fan girls...em, they think I'm attractive." I tell him trying not to sound awkward.

And failing.

"Thats weird." Gaara decides. "not that they think your attractive because you are, but that they watch you eat." He quickly recovers, his eyes widen as he registers what he said.

"thanks man, yeah I think its weird to but I have gotten used to it." I shrug taking another bite.

"Gaara?!" A girls voice shouts. I turn to look at it, it's his sister and brother coming this way.

"Tamari." Gaara says stiffly. "Kankuro" the two sibling look at me then their little brother then me again.

"Hey there. We just finished some training and came to eat want to join?" I say casually sliding over in the four person booth. Kankuro slides in next to Gaara, though he gave him a wide birth, and the girl slid in next to me. I chuckled at their weapons beside our table. They all went for oversized and impractical I suppose.

"You trained with him?" Kankuro asked me.

"Yeah we ran into each other, and I thought it was only faair you know my specailty since you didn't see me fight. So I told Gaara to pass on the message, and I was able to help him out with something." i shrug trying to be nonchalant.

"Shin is a seals expert." Gaara tells them as I signal a waitress for the two new commers to order.

"I'm a puppet master." Kankuro tells me patting the weird bandaged thing.

"Yeah my brother told me, so it's really just two specialty's going against one another. Unlike some of the other matches which seem more weighted." i agree.

"weighted matches?" Tamari asks.

"Well not weighted, but they compliment each other, would be a good opportunity for the fighters to show off." I explain. "Naruto and Neji are both hand to hand minor jutsu's, and both of them just have jutsu's that compliment their hand too hand. As you saw. It makes for a smooth even fight. Tamari and my brother, mid to long range fighters. Again smooth complimenting fight." I brush over that way so I didn't give anything more away. "Gaara and Sasuke, well they are the only even matches for each other, Sasuke is close range, Gaara iis mid to long, but their power levels are quite above the rest of ours, so they are paired together." The three sand siblings nod. "But us it was kind of one poison over the other. They could have put you with Shino, but he could use his bugs to rot your puppet in no time flat, or make them eat your chakra string, or even fill your whole puppet with them and take the control away. So if they did that then the matches would look weighted in our favor." i explain. "But with me I have no real defense against puppets, no secret move that would destroy your battle strategy." i say honestly.

"You expect me to believe that?" He asks raising one eyebrow.

"Well I mean you don't have to believe it, but really my seals if use the right way and with extensive planning on battle field could destroy your puppet, but I dont have something up my sleeve that puts this in my favor. So its just going to be which of us finds away to immobilise the other, or outlast the other." i shrug eating another bite of food just as the other two's meals arrive.

"Why are you telling me this?" He asks.

"Well...I guess I'm not one of those people who have to win all the time, be sides making it to the second round would mean more work. Which would be a drag." I say quoting my brother.

"Your kind of weird...is your meat raw?" Tamari comments and then asks looking disgusted.

"He is a fox." Gaara tells her. She looks at him with an odd expression. "Shin helped me get control of...him. I uh. I'm not like before." Gaara explains awkwardly.

"Eh it was just a rune to keep it out of your mind. I still think when you get home you should get a seal expert to look at it." I tell him smiling. I was starting to feel uncomfortable though, I didn't particularly like many people, and Gaara was cool, but the other two were just...you know humans. They were to close and smelled to strong. I scratched my arm well I quickly finished. "Gaara I have to go, we can meet in the field from before tomorrow if you want I'll be training there again." I tell him quickly. He nods looking at me questionaly picking up that something was up.

While I poked fun at his social anxiety I had the same thing, it usually didn't bother me unless Shika wasn't with me. But I was at a table with three people I had just met who weren't even from my country and it felt suffocating.

"I'll walk you out." Tamari decided.

"Just let him go." Gaara told him. She nodded and slid out of the booth to let me out and I followed suit. I placed money for mine and Gaaras meals on the table, I smiled at Gaara then left quickly.

.

.

Once I was home I closed the door quickly leaned against it and sighed.

"Hey Seishin...you alright?" Mom asked coming over and petting my head, fixxing my braids. I'm not sure why she continued to brraid my hair like a 'sexy nature fairy' but she loved it so I let her.

"Yeah I just made a new friend, it was scary." I told her. She smiled at me well furrowing her eye brows. Wow that was a look I had never seen before. "you know the Kazekage kids? Well lets just say that the red haired one that hurt Rock Lee stumbled upon me training, we chatted a bit. I kept hearing a very mean voice in the chakra, then I realised something was making him act like a psycho, I fixed the problem using my seal. Anyway we went to eat, then his sibling showed up. Then I was at a table with three people I barely know." I finished in an exsasprated voice.

"So let me get this straight. It wasn't the psycho chakra voice, or the boy who hurt Rock Lee, it was the fact that you were alone and sitting with three new people?" She asked.

"Yes and where is Shika? I haven't seen him since this morning." I asked squinting at my mom as she let out a peel of laughter.

"He is fine he is training with your father, sit down I'll make you tea." She doesn't give me much of a choice though, and just plops me into a kitchen chair. "Shika said something curious." She said as she filled the kettle with tea. I quickly thought of all the secrets I had ever told Shika that wuld get me in trouble. Yesterday I swept the dirt under the rug...maybe it was that.

"He said that you told him, you could never get married or fall in love with a human?" She asked. I could tell she was trying to be casual.

"Well isn't that obvious. I'm a fox genetically speaking."

"you might not be able to have kids, but i see no reason why you can't fall inlove." she fills a tea kettle with water then sticks thee tea leaves into steep.

"Well...I've never been attracted to human women." I tell her honestly.

"And men?" She asks. I think about that for a second.

"Nope." I decide.

"Here I know what to do!" She puts the tea pot and cups on the table then shuffles into the living room with magazines. "these are your athers." she explains sitting right next to me. She openes one up between us and points to a half nakid girl on the inside.

"Mom is this porn!?" I ask pushing it away.

"Shin concentrate." she turns the page over to a burnet girl in heels...and thats it.

"Mom I don't think this is doing anything for me." I tell her honestly as she flips to the next page of three girls hanging out in a soft bed. "I think there are far to many pillows on that bed."

"This one has nice breasts Shin look." She says tapping the page. Compareing them to the other girls breasts I had seen in the book I agreed, they did seem nice. I nod and flip to the next page.

WOW that was a graphic page. Mom flipped over it real fast as we both screamed.

"What is happening here?" Shika and Dad ask having enered the room to see Mom and I screaming trying to flip a page.

"Mom is showing me porn." I tell them inspecting the more tame page.

"we are trying to descover his 'type" She explains.

"Hey are tho-" Dad stops speaking but we all knew what he was going to say. Shika and I both take that moment to quickly exit the house, hands over our ears.

.

.

The next day I headed to the same field, Gaara wasn't there, I had brought my seal note book though, with no real idea in mind I started doodleing some compository seals.

Huh I wander if I could spread seals with my feet...

"Seishin?" A shy voice called me out of my thinking, I looked up from where I was laying to find Gaara looking down at me.

"Oh hey Gaara, how was your day?" I ask sitting up and crossing my legs. Gaara wincd at the question.

"It was...something."

"Do you want to talk about it?" I ask motioning for him to sit.

"It's weird not having him there, it was like I was somehow empty." He explained.

"That makes sense, he was a major factor into your personality since he has been with you from birth, so it will take a while to find out who you are without him leaking into your mind." I explain. He nods seeming to accept this.

"Did you change once you changed." He asked.

"Well." I thought about it, my personality from when I was a fox till now. "yes I have. I used to be closed off, and I hated nearly everyone, well hate is the wrong word. They all annoyed me. I didn't really talk to anyone, and now that I think about it I was more focussed and calculating. Now I talk allot more, I think less and rely on my instincts, it's easier for me to create runes, I am less annoyed by people, but i do have...Social anxiety, which is why i left last night." I explained. Later on I felt bad about ditching him since I had resolved t help him.

"I'm not supposed to talk to you anymore." He says after a few moments silence.

"oh...why not?" I ask a bit curious. You think they would have been happy I cured their little brother.

"My father had plans for me in the future...the way I was before that is." I looked at him, my concern dripping into my expression.

"why would he want you like that? Unable to control your own mind." He looks at the ground grimly.

"I don't think my father is as loving and accepting as yours." I think about that for a moment.

All the fathers I knew were loving and accepting. Although I heard Hinata's father was a dick.

"How did your siblings react?" I asked deciding not to talk about his father, seeing as he was the Kazekage, and I didn't want to start a war.

"I think they are going to make me do something i don't want to do." I looked over at him alarmed at his words. I could see tears in his eyes, but his ace looked neutral and void of all emotions. I didn't know how to react...should I hug him. No definitely not.

"No one can make you do anything anymore, they can't force you to do things. If you don't want to do something just say no."

"I don't know if it's that easy." He commented dryly.

"Well maybe its easier said then done." I admitted. "But if it's something you don't want to do, you owe it to yourself to say no." I said in what I hoped was a kind soft voice...yes I was trying to mimic my mother, but it sounded awkward and wrong in my deep voice.

"I have to go Shin. O don't think I'll be able to see you again." He said in his monotone voice. I looked at him unsure If I should grabe him and never let him go or slap some sense into him. Thankfully I am a rational human being and did neither.

"Okay Gaara remeber what I said, and also I will always being your friend and no matter what I am here to help." He looked at me with the same wonder he did when I placed the seal on his neck

"friend." He said dreamily, then turned and left the clearing.

To be perfectly honest I didn't know how to feel, or what to do. Over the short time I knew Gaara I had gotten attached to him, not in the way I was attached to my family, more like how I was attached to my team and sensei.

Seeing him in pain didn't feel right to me, it made me feel...icky

But would I get involved in Ino's family business? Or Choji's. Probably.

But Asuma's family business was a better example.

I'd never get involved with a fight between him and his father...you know the hokage.

.

.

It had been a been a few weeks since Gaara told me he couldn't see me anymore, and true to his woords, he never sought me out again. The Chunin final exam was in two days, so the day after tomorrow. I wasn't particularly nervous. I learnt a few things in my month break. Like now I could almost fully body flicker, and also I could place seals with my feet.

"SHIN WHY ARE YOU JUST SITTING AROUND!" Ino's voice yelled, I had gone back to laying in the grass trying to figure out how I could spread seals with my feet. "YOU NEED TO TRAIN!" She screamed. She came in front of me, hand on my hips frowning down at me.

"Ino I am training. I am thinking of strategy's and Ideas." I said tapping my note book.

"Ohhhhhh sure. Your just doodling what is that?!" She asked pointing the seal I had been writing that may or may not suck all oxygen from the air. Making un prepared people freak out, and stun them. It would also be helpful if one of my fire attacks get out of control.

"Well it's a seal that will give me an upper hand in thee chunin exams." I say not explaining it because I knew she could care less.

"Well since your not doing anything I need you to go on a date with me." She grabbed my arm and pulled me into a standing position. "Is that really what your wearing you look awful, this is a date not a trip to the training fields."

"Well in my defense, I didn't know I had a date planned with you." I said in aa bored voice. "So who exactly are we trying to make jealous?" I asked letting her pull me home.

"well news of my failure has spread around, I need good publicity." she said in an unusually high pitched voice. "Yeah yeah I'll owe you one." We walk into my house she pushes mee into my bedroom. "Now wear something nice." I look through my draweers then at the clothes that I'm wearing.

"One problem. All I own are black pants, and black long sleeved shirts. I have a white shirt?" I call out.

"Yeah, wear the white one, I brought this blazer." She opened the door and thew in said blazer. It was a deep purple with black lining and borders. I wasn't particularly concerned about how I looked so i shrugged and pulled it over the white shirt. It didn't match the cargo pants and to be honest it would look better with a black shirt underneath, but I could never change Ino's mind. I looked in the mirror at my hair. Just like everyday four of the front stands of my hair were braided and twisted together into my loose ponytail. Not knowing what else to do with myself I walked out of the room.

"Good?" I asked noticing for the first time she was in a purple sundress thingie. She looked nice I suppose.

"Yeah lets go." She nods wrapping her arm around mine.

"Whoah where are you two going so fancy? Its getting late." Mom asked stepping into the kitchen as we walked by.

"Oh Ino needs me to go make people jealous." I said at the same time Ino said.

"We are going on a date."

"A date!?" Mom asked clapping her hands together excited.

"Mom, it's a fake date, not real. Dont get excited."

"Oh annd what about Gaara?" She asked still hopeful.

"I think he dumped me." I said laughing.

"What! You were dateing a guy!" Ino screamed.

"No we are just friends but he told me we can't hang out anymore." Mom frowned.

"I'm sorry sweaty, well have fun on your fake date." She called.

We walked out of the Nara district before the curiosity finally got to me.

"So where am i taking you one this date?" i asked her.

"Well first you will take me to a movie, then to that new classy restaurant that was set up down town, and then your going to take me window shopping until the stores clothes at ten." She tells skipping as we walk. "Make sure you compliment me allot though." She pouted. "You didn't even say I look pretty." She complained motioning down to her dress.

"You already know you look pretty so why do I have to tell you?" i ask her.

"Because it's nice to hear." She explained elbowing me. We approached the movie theater, and there was already a long line up. "Don't worry about the line you reserved us the best seats in the house."

"Ah, well how smart of me." I said awkwardly as we stepped into line. Basically the whole line turned around to stare at mine and Ino's arms linked together. Several girls began to cry. "oh I forgot to tell you, you look really pretty Ino." I said smiling down at her, attempting to be smooth and sexy the way she would want me to be. Ino giggled and placed her fingers to her lips, pulling off the bashful look well.

"Thanks Shin." She giggled out. "So how is your training going for the chunin exams?" She asked.

"It's mostly strength training really." I tell her naturally. "Maybe you could help me spar?" I ask adding velvet to my voice.

"I would but i don't think I would challenge you enough for it to be usefull." She pouted again and looked down at our feet. I grabbed her lightly and made her look at me. Hmmm what would a guy in a drama say right now?

"I promise, fighting you would be a challenge in more then one way." her eyes widen and she blushes. I drop my fold on her chin and she looks to her feet. The crowd in screaming in both excitement and in sadness.

Hell yeah, I'm a great actor.

When we sit in our seats the movie is already about to start, and I admire the seats Ino chose, it's further back and in the middle, a perfect view of the over sized screen. I felt a bit panicked when the lights turned off and the previews played at a uncomfortable volume but Ino's arm around mine calmed me.

"Shin what drink did you get for yourself?" She asks as the previews are playing for other movies.

"Oh I got...Iced tea." I take a sip and confirm. "Want some?" I ask offering it to her. She doesn't take it out of my hands but leans down to sip from the straw.

"Yummy." She decides then leans back in her seat.

.

.

I'd like to say the movie was epic and I loved every moment about it, but it was about a doctor who fell in love with her boss, then became really sick, and when the doctor she loved, and by the way he loved her to, was operateing on her, the women died. Then their is about fifteen minuets of this doctor doing everything to get her back, in the end he splits open her chest and manually forced her heart to beat, and saved her.

Then the movie ended with the to of them looking fabulous getting married on the beach.

Yawn.

We made our way arm in arm to the fancy resurant, being the gentleman I am i reserved us seats, thankfully these ones were private, so we didn't need to act anymore.

"I think your plan is working." I tell her as we sit at the table. She pouted and blew her hair out oof her face.

"I doon't think so." She said sinking into her chair.

"Are you kidding me? All of those girls are freaking out." I tell her pointing outside the resturant.

"Well the real plan for tonight was to try and get you to fall for me." She tells me in her sassy voice. I open my mouth to speak then close it. I try again but not thoughts reach my brain neverrmind words reaching my mouth. "Yeah but yoour so good at acting, and completly dense that you didn't even realise. I think all I did was make me like you more!" She yelled pokeing a finger at me.

"Well if you asked me on a date then I would have showed up as my normal self not pretending!" I yelled back trying to defend myself. I wasn't dense, i just thought she wanted to get her image back.

"You wouldn't have even came if I asked." Her bottom lip wobbled and tears filled her eyes.

"Ino don't cry. You can't like me, I'm not human, it wouldn't be right." I say in the soothing voice I used oon Gaara.

"Well to bad!" She yelled at me. I cringed back. "That doesn't matter to me!"

"Well it matters to me, I maay look like a human right now, but I am a fox, and you are not my species. I'm not attracted to humans." I tell her in a final tone. "Besides what about Sasuke?" I ask. She gives me her normal Ino angry face.

"Clearly I'm over him Shin! Catch up." She uncrosses her arms and grabes the menu. "I'm exprienced with one sided love so dont worry about me." I looked at her doubtfully, she looked up and grumbled. "Hurry up and order, I was only half lying about the image thing."

.

.

After the not so fake date I walked Ino home then took my time walking home, walking the long way around then taking yt another detour. I felt extreamly uncomfortabe having someone like me.

Wait what is that smell...blood.

I follow the scent, and a few blocks from it I hear fighting, I aproach stealthily to get a peak. The man who I think was Gaara's sensei was fighting the proctor who coughed allot at the prelims.

It didn't look like a friendly fight. Gaara's sensei spit weird black gunk in the other guys face which caused him to step back. I ran in, not sure of what I was doing or why I was doing it. I sent a series off fire balls at the Sand guy which caused him to back up so I could quickly check the proctor.

"What the hell is going on?" I ask lifting up the proctor then looking at the Sand sensei. "This is horrible timing for a spar, people are sleeping." I reprimand. "go on back to your designated sleeping quarters, I don't think you were given passes to gallivant around at night." The Sand sensei sweat drops as I turn to the proctor. "Shame on you, your a leaf special jounin exhibiting this poor behavior." Both of the men looked to stun too do much of anything.

"Kid get out of here, your not involved in this." The sensei said.

"well if this isn't a spar, then it's a fight, and there for I am involved because that means a foreign ninja is attacking my comrade in an unsanctioned fight." As I talked I was taping my feet onto rocks near by spreading explosion seals ready to be activated.

The man lunged forward I activated the pebbles then kicked them towards him they exploded but he easily dodged.

"Get out of here I can take him." The proctor complained. I kicked the last pebble at the man and the oxygen was ripped from the air around him. Any fires that would have started died instantly, and he fell mid jump clutching his throat.

"Lets hope that stunned and didn't kill him." I said quickly tugging on the guy to run with me.

"Go warn the Hokage." He tells me ripping himself from my grip.

"I have a feeling that he has back up so I wont leave you alone until our back up comes." I yell at him tugging at him again.

"We don't have back up." He tells me calming his voice.

"Do you think our fellow ninja's are going to hear explosions in the street and then dismiss it?" I ask and he sweat drops.

"You really seem to be messing up all my plans Seishin Nara." I voice calls out, the proctor and I turn towards the voice. The white haired leaf genin we met before the exams stood on a near by water tower. How many water towers did Konoha have? I just saw one a few blocks ago.

Focus Shin, think of a witty come back.

"I'm sorry have we met before?" I ask. "Was it Chin? Kuro? Am I getting warmer?" the proctor and The white haired guy sweat dropped just as the other guy from the sand shows up.

"It doesn't matter. I have decided I'm going to bring you back for tests." He sad menacingly. "Kill the proctor, capture the other." The sand ninja goes to lunge at us, and the proctor moves to intercept.

"WAIT WAIT WAIT!" i yell and to my surprise both parties do in fact stop and look at me. "We would really love to fight and all that stuff, but you see I have a hair appointment to get to, and this guys promised he would there for moral support." As I ramble I spread ink across the roof and it slowly seeps to the roofs and water tower the other two were standing on. "But if you want I can schedule you in for Tuesday. This Tuesday." I say in a cheerful voice.

"The more you talk the more I want to kill you!" The white haired guy yells. I activate the seal. Never had I made such a large seal, and it uncomfortably ripped my chakra from my body. The oxygen was taken from the air, I was the only one prepared with a lung full of fresh air. I grabbed the proctors arm and ran, pressing a seal to enclose them in the concrete of the roof.

I just bought us about thirty seconds.

Whoa the world didn't usually wobble and sway. I look down at my leg to find a senbon dug into it. I look up to see the two enemy ninjas had broken out already and were approaching.

Also the proctor I was dragging had a matching senbon in his ass. When did those get there?

Okay last card. I took off the proctors sandals and decorated them both with domino blue inferno seals. I had placed one every place I had stepped. I threw sandal fast enough to watch as the first explosion went off.

Then once again I passed out.


	11. Chapter 11- A Fox's Vice and virtue

**hello new readers, and if there are any old ones, so I actually have this story already written out until shippuden, its just all the spell checking nonsense I have to do, thankfully though, I have pokezeb to help edit with me! also btw the wonderful mind that bloomed this story idea! its really fun comming back to this story because I wrote it like a year ago, so its interesting to look at my old writing style, and how i have progressed since. one thing hasn't changed though.**

 **and that's my grammar and spelling! haha anyways enjoy the read, annnnnnd yeah okay bye ^.^**

* * *

Unfortunately i didn't wake up in an uncomfortable hospital cot. Instead I found myself tied upside down to a tree. Hanging next to me was the proctor. Three sound ninjas sat around a fire. I wiggled and swayed my self lightly into my hanging partner. He didn't wake up.

"Hey what are you doing?" One of the sound ninja's asked, this one was tall and lanky, beside him was a very muscular short girl, which was an odd combination, and then the last guy had green hair, with the bushiest eyebrows I'd ever seen, and I'd seen Guy sensei in person.

"Just hanging out. What are you doing?" I asked as if this was normal. They bagged my hands, I guess they thought that would keep me from making seals. Since I didn't feel chakra suppressors, they sorely underestimated me. "So where are we going?" I asked out of pure curiosity.

"Hey just shut up before we gag you!" The green haired fellow yelled. Sheesh touchy. Maybe I'll help him out and burn off his eyebrows.

Gathering chakra, I spit five fire balls at them before spiting one at my feet and falling ungracefully to the floor. Not paying attention to the burn I spit fire at my feet and pulled the ropes off and repeated the process with my hands.

"Don't stand near me!" I warned throwing a Lava seal rock behind me. The lava appeared and grew and I heard them panic. Giving me enough time to get the proctor down. Konoha was south of where we were by the smell of it, but we needed to loose our tails first. I body flickered away.

OH MY GOD A TREE!

Flase alarm I missed it. I body flickered three more times before stopping to inspect my passenger.

"Hey buddy you doing alright?" I asked him placing him down on the ground getting antsy about the approaching ninja. "Alright no more Mr. Nice guy." I slap his right cheek rather hard. He sucks in a deep breath, and stands up in shock. "Oh good your awake. We got drugged and kidnapped. Now we need to run west for a bit and loose our tails. Then we will head north and home." I brief him untying his feet as he works on his hands.

"How did you get us away?" He asks working on his hands, though he had surpression cuffs.

"Well they put suppression cuffs on you and not me, I guess they didn't know I could do jutsu's as well, or this was a low funded kidnapping and they could only afford one pair of cuffs, i dont know i didn't ask come on." He nodded and we took off again.

"Can you create a clone?" He asks.

"Not a solid one. But I think I know what your getting at, I have a no scent seal on which means they are probably tracking yours, or our, foot prints."

"We can jump into the trees, I'll send my clone that way, and then you put that seal on me." I nod and he creates a seal, I can feel how much it weakened him. He reaches out his forearm and I set and activate his seal.

We run for a bit longer, and I sigh in relief when I find that they do follow the clone.

"So what day do you think it is?" The proctor asks.

"We were drugged all night and day, I think its about 12 am now." I tell him. He looks at me for a second but doesn't question me. When we were taken there was just one more day before the exam.

Which meant when the sun rose, it was exam day.

"I don't think we will make it in time." The proctor said. The sad part was i couldn't refute him.

"So what is your name?" I asked.

"Hayate." He tells me smiling. "I think we can be on a first name basis." I smile back then signal him to move north east.

.

"When do the Exams start again?" I ask Hayate as we rest quickly.

"At ten." He tells me drinking from one of my water spouts.

"We have about two hours to get there, and about four hours of running left." I complain rubbing my legs. "I can body flicker us there." I decide. "I'll carry you, and i'd probably be able to cut the time down by an hour." Hayate just looks at me and chuckles.

"You know i can body flicker." He says raising an eye brow,

"Yeah but your low on chakra, and we don't know what we will be walking into. We need to be battle ready, and I can recharge my chakra." I argue. He hesitantly nods. "Okay I can piggy back you, or sack of potato's you." Hayate chuckles at that.

"Lets go piggy back." I smile and nod croutching down. He puts his shackled hands around my neck then jumps onto my hips I boost him up to get a good hold, but it's a bit awward since he is taller then me. "If anyone asks this didn't happen." He tells me sternly.

"Agreed."

.

"I thought you said you could body flicker!" Hayate yelled getting off the my back.

"I can! I just have issues with control." I tell him leaning against a tree.

"I think the three trees we hit would agree." I just glare at my traveling partner.

"Well we have ten minuets until we are in Konoha, I'm going straight to the arena." Not because I was over zealous to compete, but I felt like something fishy was going on, and Hayate of course coudn't tell me what was happening, since I was a lowly genin and this was clearly a much larger issue than the kidnapping of two ninja's.

"Thats probably best." He agrees and we break into a run again. We reach the gates and stop for a second so they can see our faces then keep going despite the gate guards questions. At the arena we spare each other a glance, then part ways. Shika's scent was in the staircases with Naruto.

There was also the scent of blood, and Gaara.

I ran up the staires skipping several at a time, bounding higher and higher close to Shika. I saw Gaara, but around him was the chakra of the tailed beast.

"Gaara whats the matter?" I ask skidding to a stop.

'Kill him, I want his bloood.' the chakra voice cooed. I went to grab onto Gaaras shoulders but the sand stopped me, scraping my skin away with the force. I quickly bring my hands back with a yelp.

"That hurt! Ow, ow, ow!" I say blowing on my bleeding hand. Gaara looks at the blood then my face, and acts like he just woke up.

"Oh, it's you." He says dreamily. 'kill him, kill him' the chakra voice chimes.

"Yeah it's me. Are you okay?"

"I have to go. Don't try to stop me." Gaara says in a final voice.

"I wont, but remember you can say no, and you are strong enough to make your own decisions. No one can control you." He doesn't seem to hear my words and just continues his eerily slow walk down the stairs.

A rational part of my brain tells me to stop him, but the rest off it was screaming at me to find Shika and protect him. So thats what I did, it seemed He and Naruto were sitting at the stair case. It took two minutes to reach them, and both of their hearts were racing.

"Shin? What happened to you? Did you fall down the stairs?" Naruto asked. The blazer Ino had given to me was ripped and dirty, and my hands were scraped and my face looked like I had ran into three trees...wonder why. Hahahaha.

"Never mind about that. Are you guys okay? You look like you have seen ghosts and I smell blood." I say frantically checking Shika's limbs and patting him down for injurys. He didn't push me away knowing how important this was to me.

"That Gaara guy just crushed two people to death. We have to warn Kakashi. Sasuke is about to fight him!" Naruto began to run. Shika nodded at me and ran after Naruto. I groaned quietly. To much running. I was so tired I wanted to crawl into a ball and sleep.

But I didn't, instead I ran after the other two. We got to the stands and Naruto found his sensei, who was helpfully with my team and sensei.

"Kakashi sensei! I have to talk to you!" Naruto said in his obnoxious voice.

"Hey...why am I standing over there?" I ask looking at the contestant stands. Sure as day, there I stood, though with less injurys and well rested.

"Shin?" Asuma asked doing a double take, looking at me then to my double.

"What happened to you!?" Ino asked stomping towards where we stood.

"I was kidnapped for the past day or two thanks for noticing." So the reason why everyone wasn't panicked about my disappearance was because there was someone pretending to be me. "That guys doesn't even look like me." I say offended.

"Wait you were kidnapped?" Asuma and Naruto ask.

"He looks exactly like you from this far away." Ino argues.

"I knew it wasn't you." Shika assured.

"Yes, i was kidnapped, I don't know how much I'm allowed to say, but the person who was kidnapped with me is telling the Hokage." I told Asuma and Kakashi.

"You should be at the briefing to." Kakashi argued.

"Well I don't know much. Apparently the reason i was kidnapped is above my pay grade." Everyone continues to stare at me. "Seriously I don't know anything. I saw a leaf ninja fighting someone after mine and Ino's date I went to help him, but the enemy had back up. We got drugged then I woke up hanging upside down in a tree. I got us away from the people then we ran home. That is literally all I know." Of course i knew a bit more.

"So then if you are you, then who is he?" Choji asks, huh I hadn't even noticed him, I thought he would still be in the hospital for his stomach.

"That's something I'd like to know too." Kakashi agrees.

"Other me is gone." I comment dryly. Everyone turns to look at the competitor stand to confirm.

White feathers fell like soft snow around us. I looked at them curiously, they were pretty, it was calming watching them drift to the ground.

Something else distracted me from them though. Gaara's chakra mixed with beast chakra, I had ignored it before but now I focused on it.

I shouldn't say beast chakra because it was a lot like my own, nature chakra, his was higher concentrated, and mad.

The feathers stopped falling and I looked around the stands Asuma, Guy, Kakashi, and Sakura were the only ones awake. Well Shikamaru was too, but he was fake sleeping.

"Genjutsu?" I ask.

"I think it's time you tell us everything you know." Kakashi said seriously as Guy Sensei came to our group.

"Well Gaara's sensei was attacking Hayate Gekko, I saw and tried to intervene, it worked for a bit and we almost got away from him, but he had back up. There had been a white haired guy with him, i had met him at the genin exams. Gaara is running away by the way. And Sasuke is going after him." I pointed to the arena, Gaara and his sibling were making a break for it, but Sasuke seemed like he wanted to finish the fight. "Anyway, the white haired guy said he wanted to bring me someone to give me some tests and thats about it."

"Incomming!" Guy sensei yelled leaping up and round house kicking a sand ninja. Suddenly our stand was over run.

"We have to protect the audience." Asuma decides. His eyes flash to the nobles stand. You could see from here a hyuga fighting off enemies but even a hyuga couldn't take on that many. I bolted into action fighting the nearest sand ninja around me. He came at me with a kunai, and suddenly I wished I kept such objects on me like normal ninjas. Instead I ripped off a sandal pressing a minature oxygen bomb and throwing it at his face, I could feel my sensei sweat dropping, that is until the man began clutching his throat and gasping for air, I didn't waste a moment and kicked him hard in the face. I grabbed onto his robes and hucked him over the stand wall and into the arena.

Please don't be dead.

I moved on picking up a Kunai from the ground throwing it into the ninja who Asuma was fighting-thigh. Asuma took the oportunity to knock him out with one swift punch.

"You guys get this stand. Shin come with me." Asuma ordered heading towards the noble stand. I looked at Shika's fake asleep body and ran after Asuma.

"You should probably get more back up, someone who isn't a genin." I suggested to my sensei as we ran.

"Hiashi Hyuga is there." He says smirking. When we arrived it looked like Hiashi was on the verge of being over run, Asuma pulls a guy off Hiashi and hucks him towards me. "Yours." Is all he says before jumping into the fray of things.

I need things to throw. I think while locked in hand to hand combat with the ninja. I don't look at his face, seeing their face would make them to real to me, and make it harder for me to fight.

"I'm going to borrow this." I tell a random sleeping noble as I pluck his fan away from his hands. I throw the thing to the far back wall then flip away from the ninja, just in time for a stone pillar to swat him off the stand.

"Nice one!" Asuma yells. He has his wind blades out smoke between his lips, and kicking some serious ass. I look towards our other partner, he is not doing as well. His chakra was low, and he was sweating hard. I grab some of the nobles jewlery and other junk and run fast towards Hiashi at body flicker speed. Grabbing him tight around the waist I hold onto a nearby chair and throw what appeared to be a golden broach. A wave erupted from it and suddenly I realised my mistake.

I just summoned a wave to to wipe away the enemys, where a bunch of sleeping nobles were chillen unaware. Three seals and throws fixed my problem as a stone bar came from one side of the seats to the other holding them all in place.

Only three of the remaining seven actually got swept away. We all stepped back in to battle. I was running basically out of chakra until I could recharge, so I was stuck in hand to hand.

I wasn't exceptional at it, so it was slow going, half the time I just blocked. Out of the corner of my eye I saw something that sent panic into my soul, Asuma was locked in a fight with one guy, and Hiashi, but behind Asuma was a guy charging a fire jutsu.

I stepped hard onto the guy I was fightings foot, and from the bottom of it a seal spread onto him. Then I threw him with strength I didn't know I had right at the fire jutsu guy, the two of them exploded in blue flame and screams. I fell down onto my butt clutching my over exerted arm.

"I killed them." I mumbled. Asuma came in front of my face.

"You can't let it bother you right now Shin. I'm going to go secure Ino, Shikaa, and Choji. You need to go help in the village. Put this vest on." He say taking of his Chunin vest and reaching it out towards me. I stare at it numb to what it meant. "You earned it kid." I nod taking the thing from him and pulling it on. I zipped it up.

"It's to big." I tell him.

"It'll be fine go on." He tells me. I listen because what else was I going to do? Break down and think about the two men I just killed.

I'm more of a deny until it goes away sort of fellow.

A few skilled jumps to the top of the arena and I could tell what Asuma meant when he said they needed help. There was just a giant snake galavanting around and various battles being fought.

Since I didn't feel like getting more blood on my hands I went for the snake. I landed beside the proctor of the first exam.

"So whats happening?" I ask trying to seem casual, not like their was a giant snake trying to fuck up our village. As I was standing I took in more chakra.

"Nothing pierces his skin." Ibiki tells me.

"Has anyone tried to hop inside it?" I ask looking at the big snake in a bib.

"Uh no." He says acting like it was a stupid Idea, but the glint in his eyes told me he liked it.

"Well here goes nothing!" I yell skirting around the snake then hoping onto his back. As I ran up him I placed domino blue inferno seals on his back until I reached his head. He began trashing as I came into view and as he tried to buck me off, i took that oportunity to hop down his throat.

As I slid down I placed more seals. That is until I reched a clog. It was to dark to really see so I reach to what ever stopped me from moving...I felt a face.

"Hey are you guys alive?" I asked. They were covered in the slime the inside of the snake was covered in. "Well I'll get us out. But I need your shoe." I tell whoevers shoe I just removed. I placed a stone pillar seal on it, and like a charm it tore through the snakes flesh leaving us a small port hole to climb through. I pull them up and out quickly, seeing as the gross slime was begining to sting.

"CATCH!" I yell as I push the other two men out. I don't check to see how they are, and just crawl through the hole. I was going to have major claustrophobia affter this. I hop onto his back again then activate one of the seals before jumping off onto a near by roof.

Like clock work the seals go off from the middle outwards. Though after about three activations and guts flying I had to look away from the creature.

More guilt gnawed inside me.

And disgust. Seriously what was this goop it was burning my skin. I tried to wipe it off but it didn't really work. Ibiki hopped onto my roof and handed me a towel.

"Thanks." I say dryly and wipe my face off with the small rag. "Are those guys alright?"

"They were still breathing, we sent them to medical." He told me. "it looks like all the fights are wrapping up." He tells me looking around. I do the same. The only people walking around were leaf ninjas and leaf ninjas with sound or sand prisoners.

"I think I need to sit." I mumble before the exhaustion of running all day then fighting for how ever long I fought for fully hit me, and I passed out.

.

I woke up in a hospital room.

And to my surprise Gaara was at my bedside.

"Hey Gaara." I croak out. It was nightime, through my windows i could see stars.

"I didn't think you would wake up." Is all the red haired guy could say back. "I thought saying good bye, thank you, and sorry would be easier while your asleep." He expands. I sit up ignoring all my complaining muscles.

"No need to say any of those things. At least not to me. And you can take your goodbye far away, because we will see each other again." I tell him.

"I took your advice, they tried to force me to give control to him. I almost went through with it." He said in his even tone.

"I'm glad you didn't, and not just for my villages welfare, but for yours too." We make eye contact, but he is quick to look away.

"I have to leave now. To my village." He tells me getting up from his chair and shrugging on his gourd.

"I'll see you around Gaara." I tell him as he stiffly walks out.

.

Okay quick over view of what happened.

Gaara and his siblings ran away to get space for Gaara to transform. Sasuke chased them. Naruto Shika and Sakura chased Sasuke with the help of Kakashi's dog summons.

Tamari fought Sasuke and was defeated.

Shika almost died...I almost died of a heart attack at that part.

Then Sasuke and Gaara fought a bit, Gaara particaly tranformed into his tailed beast, but Naruto came and yelled at him a bit. Told him that he was also a tailed beast. (btw I just found that out) then Gaara calmed down, and that was the end of that.

In the stadium though, the hokage had been battling Orochimaru, remember, that one guy who attacked Sasuke and Naruto? The hokage somehow made it so Orochimaru couldn't use his arms, but in the effort, lost his life.

It makes my contribution in the fight look tiny.

"So what did you do Shin?" Naruto asks. They were all in my hospital room in funeral clothes. All three rookie teams.

"I didn't do much, just random fights here and there." I said dryly as the image of two men burning in my seal came to mind. "I did kill one of the snakes though." I said one because apparently their had been two, thankfully Jiraya had come and taken care of it.

"I heard no one's getting promoted." Ino stated, and a thick depression fell over the room.

"That's not true, Shin got promoted." Shika pointed to the tattered but washed Chunin jacket Asuma gave me.

"Naw Asuma gave that to me in the battle so I could go help other teams fight with out being put on Genin duty." I waved off.

"Exactly! There is no way this guy is getting promoted before me." Naruto said jabbing a finger at me. I resisted the urge to bite it. A dark chilling chakra spread over the room. It felt thick with anger. I looked around at my friends happily chatting away and no one else seemed to notice it, that is until I found Sakura cautiously eyeing Sasuke. He had his jaw closed tightly and fists clentched.

So this was his chakra? I don't remember it feeling like that. It was getting hard to breath through it. Thankfully a knock on the door saved me.

Hayate stepped into the room with a pretty purple haired girl beside him.

"Oh hey Hayate." I say swinging my legs off the bed.

"Who is Hayate?" Naruto asks.

"Obviously that guy you doofus."

"Shin t-told us a-about him. Re-remember?" Hinata speaks softly but I don't think anyone really heard..

"HE is the guy I got kidnapped with." I tell them. "And the guy who was supposed to Proctor the third part of the exam." I added. Hayate coughed.

"Shin, your needed at the Hokage tower." He tells me ignoring the chatter of my friends.

"Okay...let me put on normal clothes." I look around my room for clothes. "I don't have clothes." I realise. The purple haired girl beside me him laughs and holds up a bag.

"We brought you clothes." She assures. I smile at her and grab the clothes before slinking into my bathroom. It doesn't take long to change they got me simple black pants and a black shirt. Sadly the shirt was to tight. Also the sandals were to small. I step out of the bathroom pulling at the fabric of my shirt, then pulling my hair into a ponytail. I started walking out of the room but the two grown ups didn't move.

"Your forgetting your vest." Hayate said smiling huge.  
"You can't be serious?" I say sweat dropping. "One jounin can't promote a genin in the field, that ridiculous. I'm not Chunin material." I tell him crossing my arms just as someone- Shika- threw the vest on my head, where it stayed.

"It's true, he didn't even fight in the Exams." Naruto argues, I nod along. "And he is sarcastic and rude!" He continues...okay fair point on both counts.

"Yeah and He only knows two jutsu." Kiba tattles. Again this is techniqly true, I only know flame thrower jutsu, and fire ball jutsu.

"Well you have enough support from jounins to make it possible, don't shoot the messenger. Come on, we have to go." He tells me forcing my arms into the vest. I only half struggle, but clearly what ever I was getting called for was urgent since they called me from my hospital bed.

"Hey so do you think they will give me a vest that fits me if they are going to make me become a Chunin?" I ask pinching at the fabric of my vest. It was about two sizes to big. It had good sized pockets though. As we walked I played with the pockets listening to Hayate talk.

"If it makes you feel better when we get our new Hokage Shikamaru will probably be promoted too." He tells me. I smile at that. Of course he would, I wish I hadn't been kidnapped so I could have watched him kick ass in his match. "Even though he lost his match." Hayate finished...well, Shika must of done something cool to still be considered for promotions.

Asuma had an alarming amount of weapons tucked away in his jacket. Also like five packs of smokes. I pocketed one just for...I really don't know why.

"Hey so who wants to speak to me?" I ask.

"Jiraya, the seals expert and legendary Sanin. Apparently your seals are impossible and shouldn't eveen work." The purple haired girl tells me.

"Oh. Well. Am I being accused of cheating?" I ask scratching my head. The two burst into laughter.

"No, no, he just wants to see how you do it." I thought about that statement. So he just expected me to give up all my secrets so that his curiousity could be quenched. Who am I kidding, i didn't really care.

They lead me into and then through the halls of the Hokage tower, then Hayate opened a door and motioned me inside, closing it behind me. Little creepy if you ask me.

Inside the room the back wall was completely windows, and standing in one with binoculars was a white haired man in some seriously cool red and grey get up. On anyone other than this man I'm sure it would look ridiculous.

The fact that he was giggling like a school girl ruined the whole look though. I cleared my throat. He turned all flushed in the cheeks and smiling.

"Got a good view of the baths here want to look?" He says laughing.

I sweat drop.

What.

The legendary Sanin is a pervert?

"I'm not attracted to humans." He looks me up and down for a second then puts the binoculars on a near by table.

"Your a fox right?" He asks, turning serious.

"Thats the form I was born in yes." I answer.

"You use nature chakra like a sage?" He asks. I nod. "I saw you with the snake, and the seals you were using are not possible. I've seen people seal water into a seal, or seal dirt, but I've never seen people seal jutsu's in a seal." He finishes.

"That explains why I couldn't find any information on it." I say in a joking tone.

"I looked at your plant growing seal, and I can't even replicate it." He says pointing to a withered plant.

"Yeah, it needs nature chakra." I tell him.

"I could go into sage mod-" I cut him off quickly.

"Oh no, it would kill you if you tried. You know how nature chakra is all the elements layered together and then there is an extra, element of sorts, that life chakra, or spirit, or Chi, what ever you want to call it. You have to filter everything but that out, and I am possitive a human, even an experienced sage couldn't take in that much nature chakra without tuning to stone." I explain.

"There are layers to Nature chakra?" He asks.

"Uh, yeah, didn't your summon tell you?" I ask. "Each time i do a seal jutsu- or sometimes I call them runes, I filter through only the element that the jutsu is. It was just natural intincts really. To make a water jutsu, you don't throw in a whole mixing pot of your chakra." I reason.

"So that's how you do it?" He says in a dreamy voice, clearly thinking about all that I had said.

"I never really thought about my seals, I mean they work, maybe not well, but they get the job done." I see the image of the men burning in my seal and I cringe.

.

.

"Mom? Dad? Shika?" I call out. My smell was a bit off since an automatic bug sprayer sprayed me in the face on the way home. Now all I smelt was insect repellant.

I walk into the living room to see my family sitting around the coffee table with a cake that read congratulations, then a big slab of beef with three sparklers.

Also my mom held up a brand new Chunin jacket which was my size.

"Congratulations!" Mom yelled.

"Congratulations Shin." Dad said in his proud voice which made me have to surpress the urge to purr.

And Shika just looked at me with glee, the way he looked when he won a game of shogi.

"So how does it feel to be a Chunin?" Mom asked. I sat at the coffee table eyeing the steak.

"Like it's going to be more trouble then its worth." I stated dryly.

"Tell me about it." Shika agreed. Dad chuckled and Mom let out an exasperated breath. The good thing about Ninja parents I found was that they didn't press for details, they didn't ask about me being kidnapped, or my roll in fighting, we just spent the evening relaxing and chatting about this and that.

I was thankful, because I didn't know how I would react to being questioned about the invasion. Would I even tell them about the men I killed? Would they hate me for killing humans?

It was much better to ignore the incident altogether, they knew that.

.

.

Asuma stopped by the house, though to everyone's surprise it wasn't to pick up Shikamaru for a game of Shogi, but for me. I gabbed his jacket before we left and followed him out of the house.

We walked for a long time in silence, until we reached the training ground my team usually trained in. Asuma sat against a tree and lit up a smoke, though to my surprise he handed the lit thing to me. I took it cautiously between my fingers and pressed it to my lips breathing in the thick smoke.

It felt uncomfortable yet soothing.

"The first kills are always the worst, though it never stops bothering any of us. After a while though, you find ways to cope with it, this is my way." He says lighting up another smoke.

"Huh, I was kind of hoping you would say, eventually it stops making you feel like scum." I said dryly taking another drag.

"The second taking a life stops bothing you, is the second you loose your life. Is when you loose your humanity." Asuma tells me, I mule over his words. "But it's important for you to remember that you did what you did as a last resort, if you had thought you could stop the guy another way you would have. If you didn't do what you did, that ninja could have killed me or some of the sleeping audience, so don't beat yourself up to bad."

"Going to school with Shika, and hearing all the storys, being a ninja sounded like saving people, and doing cool things all the time. But what you don't get taught was being a ninja isn't all glorious and heroic, its unfair and cruel, and forces you to kill people." I stated bitterly. I wasn't sure where this out burst was coming from. "In my short time as a ninja, I have fought my fair share of fights." Asuma hmmed in agreement. "And I did everythng in my power to avoid killing my opponents, I didn't want to kill a human ever, I guess I was naive to think I could make it through without ever killing someone." I took a long drag of the smoke. It clouded my head in a pleaseant way.

"It may be naive to think you will never have to kill, but it's a good mind set." Asuma took a drag from his smoke. "You should never let go of that mind set, because sure our jobs would be easier if we just killed right away, but you wouldn't want that kind of blood on your hands." I nod at his words.

We sat there in silence for a long while, and everytime our smokes would go out, asuma was there with a replacement. My mother would probaby kill me if she found out.

"Well Mr. Chunin, tomorrow you have your first Solo mission." Asuma told me after the sun began to set.

"Tomorrow? I just got out of the hospital." I said a bit startled.

"Yeah, we lost a few men, but we need to keep taking missions to appear put together. Political stuff you know. We need as many teams or Solos as possible out there. And Genins are in charge of village clean up." Asuma explained. "I'll be heading out too." He tells me handing me a scroll. "This ones yours.""And here." He reaches into his vest pocket and throws me a fresh pack of smokes. "Don't let your mom see." He turns around and walks away I smile down at the smokes and stick them into my own vest.

"Say hi to Kurenai sensei for me!" I call to him, he visibly cringes and walks away in a forced natural way. I chuckle a bit and open my mission scroll.

Looks like I'll be escorting a caravan for the next month. My heart ached a bit thinking of being away from my family that long, but it also felt glad that I would get time away from the village, time away to think.

.

.

"Your going on a Solo mission alreaady?" Choji asks. Our three families had gotten together for dinner at Akimichi barbeque.

"Well I heard most Chunins and jounins that weren't in specialties are going on solo or double missions." Ino supplied. "But Chunin mostly go on doubles." She muses.

"Well i am just guarding a caravan to land of wave, watching them while they are there then bringing them back." I say eating my food.

"Our mom is freaking out though." Shika laughs looking at our mom who was frantically speaking to Choji and Ino's moms.

She wasn't taking the news well.

.

.

The next morning I was waiting at the gates for the caravan...and waiting...and oh look its lunch.

There is Sasuke...and there goes Sasuke.

Well thats odd. I don't have much time to think about it because the caravan shows up, two carts filled with goods, pulled by horses. An old man and a thirty year old man sat in the first one, then in the second two 20-30 year old men sat with one seven year old who already looked bored, and two of the sassiest looking teenaged girls.

Seven civilians to my one, and by the looks of it the caravans are fast, and I was expected to run beside them.

"BETTER KEEP UP SUNNY" the old man in the first cart yelled.

Great just my luck.


	12. Chapter 12-A Fox's First Kiss!

I'll spare you the play by play of my boring first solo mission. But basically it took us a week and a half to get to land of waves, I saw the great Naruto bridge, some kid complained to me the whole time I was there that I wasn't Naruto. The two teen girls from the caravan were just as cranky as they looked and kept wondering away from me no matter how many time I told them that I wouldn't protect them if they wondered off, the seven year old boy liked to pull on my ears.

The grown ups didn't seem to realise it was difficult even for a ninja to run for a week and a half straight.

We stayed at land of waves for a week, they sold all of their stuff, then got new stuff to bring back to Konoha, then we took two weeks to get back because we had to detour to a village out of the way too pick up some orders.

So it took six and a half weeks.

Six and a half weeks of running and arguing with hormonal teenagers, dealing with the most annoying small child, and adults who didn't know how not to argue with just about everyone and everything.

Lets just say I was happy to see Konoha in sights. I left them at the gates and ventured straight to the Hokage tower for debrief.

Which was strange because usually mission reports were done at the academy.

I was surprised to see that the new Hokage had arrived, and was one of the legendary Sanin, Lady Tsunade.

Also that she was a busty twenty some-year old.

I walked into her office and bowed.

"And who are you?" She asked moodily. Oh good, I just escaped two moody girls now i had to deal with another.

"Lady tsunade, thats Seishin Nara." the black haired women holding a...pig? Whispered to her.

"I'm Shin Nara, I was told to hand in my mission report here." I said putting the bundle of papers i had hastily filled out on my way here from the gate.

"Oh right the one who sent in the mission extension report on my first day here." She grumbled looking through my report.

"Yeah, turns out they forgot to say they had things to pick up on the way home." I said scratching my head.

"Dismissed." she said waving her hand around. I looked to the black haired girl...she forgot my pay stub.

"Uhh lady Tsunade, you need to give him his pay stub." the blond haired Hokage looked at the girl then me, she sighed deeply, riffling through the papers on her desk then finding the pink slip which was my pay check. I took it from her and bowed sparing the black haired girl a grateful smile before leaving.

I thought about hitting the hot spring before leaving but thought better of it and instead headed home. It had been six weeks without my family and my heart ached.

And the rest of my body ached. My cousins, uncles and aunts waved to me as i passed them in the nara district on my way home. I was so excited to be home, and sleep in my bed, or futon mattress on Shika's floor. I opened the door and breathed in the familiar scent of my home. I walked to the back yard where my family was gathered.

"I'm home!" i announced stepping onto the veranda.

Mom bolted up and wrapped her arms around me so tightly I thought i might die. I made dying noises and she loosened her grip.

"Shin! I thought you said it was only a months trip!" She complained stepping away from me. I smiled at her then my brother and dad. Dad stood up from his game of shogi, to wrap me in a hug, less stifling then mothers, but stilll tight enough to tell me he missed me.

"It was such a drag. I had to d all the chores without you." shikamaru complained smiling up at me.

"I missed you too." I say rolling my eyes. "The mission got extended a month in." I handed my pay stub to Dad, it had to go through the clans bank account first before being transferred to me. We paid 'taxxes' based on our income, ten percent was taken from each completed mission. I eyed Shika's vest. "I missed your promotion." I pouted.

"you knew?" He asked squinting at me.

"Yeah, even before I was told." Shika rolls his eyes both at my arrogance and my compliment. Mom clapped her hands together.

"For dinner we will have Shins favorite!" She decided we all looked at her funny.

"Raw meat?" Dad asked.

"no I mean Rabbit. He can have it raw though." She assures me. Ah that made more sense.

.

.

Some how Ino had weaseled her way into dinner with my family. As it turned out she had been pretty bored the past three weeks since sakura's team had been on missions.

We also went and to say hi to lee, who hadn't even been in his hospital bed much to the nurses dismay. Apparently Tsunade could fix him but the surgery could just as easily kill him.

Shika and I had walked Ino home then went home and straight to sleep.

That is until an Anbu woke me up in the middle of the night.

"Seishin Nara. Your being called to the Hokage tower." the Anbu told me.

"What? Right now its like mid night!" I yelled angrily. I looked at mine and Shika clock which Shika was hitting over and over, in his half asleep state thinking the alarm was going off. It read three am. Let me repeat three am. "I just got back from a mission." I reasoned this time whispering.

"Your being called to the ho-" I cut him off.

"Yeah, yeah, I'll be right there." I pouted as he left through my window. Then flailed around on the floor. I had yet to get a proper sleep in two weeks, since on Solo mission you could never really sleep at night. It was that awkward half sleep. As quietly as possible I grab my clothes and head to the front door. I quickly scribble out a note, then pull on my vest. I stuck on my weapon pouches which were actually stocked with weapons and little circular metal disks which were handy for my seals. I pull on my shoes then leave the house.

Then go back in and put on the right shoes, since my right one had been mine and the left one had been dads.

It was to damn early to try and life.

I grumbled all the way to the hokage tower, then to the hokage tower, the door opened before I could even knock which I appreciated. Inside the Hokage, her assistant, Jiraya, Kakashi and Asuma stood all staring at me...I don't think I brushed my hair.

"you called?" I say, those were the only words that came to my mouth. Tsunade looked me up and down, which you know wasn't nerve wracking at all.

"Yes I need you on a mission, but it's above your pay grade." she tells me.

"Emmm, sorry?" I ask unsure of what was happening.

"So I'm promoting you to special jounin, as a seals expert." I look to Asuma to knowing he would be the first to crack at this joke. He didn't crack. In fact he looked very serious.

"Your joking right? I have been on like fifteen D-ranks which I mostly skipped out on, two C-ranks, and one B-rank, where I broke my ankle and passed out." I argued.

"You also defeated a snake, and fought side by side with jjounins in the sand attack. You fended off two opponents high ranked enemy's here in the village-"

"Who then drugged and kidnapped me"

"And then you escaped a kidnapping while carrying a grown man." Tsunade continued.

"For the record i only carried him because we need to cut down on time and he had chakra suppression cuffs on so he couldn't body flicker." I argued again.

"Lets not forget the Chunin exams." Kakashi continued.

"Right. You managed to cheat while Kakashi was watching you-"

"Well he was busy reading to that's understandable."

"and slipped runes on your friends with the whole room watching you.-"

"Clearly I was caught"

"Then you went into the forest of death alone with all the teams targeting you." She continued.

"Hardly there was only nine, maybe ten."

"You fought off three teams at once while saving your opponents from killing each other."

"common courtesy, anyone would have done it."

"Then you found your friends, and despite your injurys, protected them and carried them back to the tower." She finished. "Not to mention the fact that your loyalty is strong, and not just to your family. When given the choice to keep Shikamaru in the exam or rat out another team, you stayed loyal and thought logically and didn't rat on anyone." She added. At this point I just felt awkward.

"So by all these facts, I know your self sacrificing to a point, your logical, to a certain point, and your talented, even if its just dumb luck."

"Can we move on to complimenting someone else now, I feel awkward." I suggest. Asuma chuckles a bit at my sarcasm, and I notice the other two men crack a smile.

"So nw that your a special jounin. I have a mission from you." She said smiling the way Shika does when yoou fall into one of his shogi traps. I just sigh deeply.

"Alright, but you'll have to deal with my mother when she finds out I got assigned another mission not even a day after I got home." Tsunade just nods.

"you should only be gone for two weeks." Tsunade informs me. I feel the familiar feeling of seals being put in place...privacy seals. Except...how weird their is a loop hole in this one.

"Hey just a random question. Has there ever been problems with confidential information being leaked even though it was only spoken in this room among trusted people?" I asked touching moving to the walls trying to pin point the leak.

Privacy seals felt like a balloon of chakra. This one though had a tiny hole in which someone with the right seal could hear.

They turned the privacy seal into a...stethoscope.

"Yes actually I have." Tsunade sid dryly. I look to Jiraya.

"Do yoou feel it." I ask taking off my sandals and brushing my feet across the floor until I found it. "Right here. A layered seal. Someone seems to be listening in." I bring nature chakra to my finger. "Should I make it stop or try to find the source?" I ask looking up at all the jounins watching me.

"Just mute it, we don't have time to find out who it is tonight." Tsunade orders me, but something in her voice told me she had a very good idea.

"Well then who ever it is had better disable the seal, or they are about have nature chakra forced innto them and turned to stone." I touch the seal and pulse a bit of nature chakra into the seal, and sure enough it was disabled. "Oh good. They didn't call my bluff." I laughed standing back up again.

"You were bluffing?" Kakashi asked.

"Well I mean only kind of, I don't really know what would happen if I forced nature chakra into something someone had their active chakra in." I shrugged.

"We just think it would turn them to stone." asuma finishes.

"It probably would, or at least in chakra strings." Jiraya states stroking his chin.

"can we can back on track now?" Tsunade asks. We all bow in apology.

"Right." Tsunade continues. "While you were gone their was a run in with a group called the akatsuki, a band of S-ranked ninja. Two of them infiltrated Konoha, Kissame of the mist, and Itachi Uchiha of the leaf. You and Jiraya are going to find their trail and get info on them. Hopefully get some intel." She tells me. I take a moment or two to process this large bucket of information.

"how old is their trail?"

"Over a month old." Kakashi tells me. I let out a low whistle.

"Sorry but scents don't stay that long." I apologize.

"She means searching around towns to try and pick up their figurative scent." Asuma says laughing a bit.

Oh.

"I need your seal the stops scent, and once we do find their figurative scent, you need to find their literal scent." Jiraya informs me.

"I call the that seal a rune, since its permanently on your body and you just need to reactivate it." i tell him. No one seems to care and they all just nod.

"This is an above S-rank mission." Tsunade tells me. "You are not to engage the enemy." That was actually the last thing i had planned.

.

.

Had they told me, most of this mission would be spent at...escort services, I probably would have turned this down. I mean it was one thing to act interested in Ino when she asked, it was another to pretend I was interested in a...women covered in makeup and the scent of other men.

I was surprised they let me in, but apparently I looked old enough.

As it turned out there would be no intercourse needed, we just needed to drink have a good time and slowly and gently ask the girls questions.

And surprisingly we found lead after lead.

Two men one attractive and one who look a shark was the talk of the towns we went by. Plus the matching clothes, people seemed the think it was a couples outfit and that they were gay. I found that hilarious.

We were already two weeks in and didn't seem to be turning around anytime soon, and I woke with yet another hang over.

"If my mom ever found out about this she would remove your insides." I groan downing some water.

"Yeah, yeah." Jiraya was clearly suffering from his own alcohol headache. "Can you get a scent yet?"

"No but it seems pretty obvious they are heading for ame." We had been slowly making our way to the Ame border for the past two weeks. "all we have really found out about them is that Kissame had a real sweet tooth for fried fish stalls." I complain rubbing my temples. "And that Itachi appears to be suffering from a cold, and old ladies think he is depressed. I think that runs in the family though." I comment dryly.

"The second they get to Ame we loose the trail." Jiraya says out loud what we booth already knew.

"Between the two of us we could infiltrate Ame though." I said already formulating a plan.

"Not a good idea. If we get caught we could start a war, and Hano is not someone I want to fight again." I purse my bottom lip out and nod.

"fair point." I think about our predicament. "Well if we are confident they are heading to Ame, we can run straight through the border, since we know they just walk, and tend to take roads." i suggest. "When we close enough I can pick up their scents and use the camera seal to get info?" Jiraya thinks about it sitting cross legged drinking some tea the hotel had left for us like every morning.

We had made a plan for spying on them. I would clone myself, -a new jutsu I learned, though I didn't have enough concentration to make more than two- then turn that cloe into a bird, place a camera seal on it, then we could watch form a safe distance.

Using my own shadow clone meant it would be filled with nature energy, which they would be less likely to pick up.

Jiraya also modified my seal to make the distance a whole fifty feet and made it audio as well by adding a small mic and receiver rune to the design. Though on the receiver you placed the small audio seal on you ear.

It was really cutting edge and amazing. I kind of just wanted to scrap the whole mission and make Jiraya help me with the rest of my crappy seals.

"thats a good plan. We will eat pack up, then head out." Jiraya announced, it took me several seconds to recall the conversation from before.

.

.

We had found them and implemented out plan. They had set up camp in the forest and I made my close look like a sleeping bird just chilling.

They were both awake and saying nothing. Like they sat there doing nothing and saying nothing. So Jiraya and I did the same, fifty feet further south.

"Leader will be disappointed we failed." Kissame stated.

"We should collect them in order." Itachi says in a voice that reminded me a bit of Gaara.

"I don't know why he said to get the ninetails first, and this soon, we are years away from being ready" Kissame agreed.

After that they stopped talking again and Kissame went to sleep. After three hours he woke and Itachi rested.

When the sun came up they headed out again, and we followed waiting for any semblance of information, but they crossed into the Ame border without another word. I with drew my clone dissipating it when it was near enough to see, and with its disappearance the video and audio seals disappears as well.

Before talked we turned and ran towards Konoha for two hours straight until Jiraya stopped and I sighed in relief. Running was slowly becoming my personal hell.

"They are collecting tailed beast?" I ask panting.

"Thats what it seems like. And it seems like they need them in order." jiraya said gravely. I guessed they meant based on their tails. So Gaara would be first.

"They said they are years away from being ready." i thought that was a good thing. That meant we had a few years to prepare for what ever this was.

"We need to get back and report." jiraya told me, clearly my clearance level only stretched so far.

.

.

The house was empty when I got back. So I did the rational thing and spread out on my stomach on the living room floor...and fell asleep.

When i woke up again I had magically appeared in my bed on Shika's bedroom floor. After being locked in the Hokage's tower from two am when we arrived to yesterday at noon, I had apparently slept a full twenty four hours, because it was tomorrow, and noon.

I stumble out of the room and to the kitchen. I rummage through the fridge. Nothing to eat. Oh here we go bagged meat with a note saying Shin on it. My mom rocked. I turned to stick the meat on a plate then onto the table and was startled by the fact that Ino and her mother was over and at the table with my mother.

"good morning shin." Mom giggled. I mumbled out a hello and sat beside her.

"you look aweful!" Complained Ino.

"I'm just exhausted." I say dryly while place the raw meat on my plate and reaching for some silver wear in the drawer.

"My, my, shin it looks like you grew." Ino's mom comments. I smile at her and work on cutting my meat.

"So where were you this time?" Ino asks seeming annoyed. "Escorting some farmers to wind country?" I didn't comment on the fact that farmers wouldn't really want to go to wind country.

"It's a classified mission Ino I can't talk about it." I tell her annoyed. It was to early for her to do this crap.

"Were you with girls again? I heard all the storeys about your last mission from those civilian girls, telling them not to leave you side." I looked to Ino's mom and my mom for help but they were just snickering. I just wanted to eat fooood.

"Because I was their to guard them Ino what do you expect?" I say rubbing my temples.

"well you didn't have to be smooth and flirtatious when you asked them to stay close." She said whining and crossing he arms.

Dear mother of god help me.

"I was neither of those things. I literally just said. 'stop running off i cant be in two places at once.' and I also may have said, 'if you run off again i wont save you when bandits come to kill you.' but don't tell the Hokage that." I added to try and lighten things up. Mom thankfully found it funny, though Ino's mom seemed to be trying to guess if i was joking. Ino still sat in her chair moping. "Now stop it with the third degree aand drink your tea." I grumbled pushing her cup towards her then went back to my food.

"awwwe you guys would be such a cute couple!" Our moms gushed. That lightened Ino's mood, though I didn't like them putting that idea into her head when I could never repricate her feelings. I looked down at my chest to see i had zero shirt on, and sweats.

I know I fell asleep in full gear...

"Mom...where did my clothes go?" I asked.

"your brother carried you to bed yesterday, and apparently your clothes were disgusting so he washed them, they are hanging outside." Thank god. I had two fresh packs of smokes in my vest, and Shika would have hid them for me.

"Where is Shika?" I ask realising he wasn't around. Mom smiled so big i pinched away a few inches.

"He is on a date with his girlfriend." She said merrily. What girlfriend.

What?

He knew a girl besides ino? He liked a girl.

What is happening.

"Do you know ten ten from Rock Lee and Neji's team?" Ino asked. I nodded, she was the weapons mistress with the pigtail buns. "Her." Ino said smiling.

"When did this happen?" I ask.

"About a month ago." Mom says. "She is really sweet." Mom assures me.

"Sheesh a guy leaves for eleven weeks." I mutter.

"Your not leaving again are you?" Ino asks pouting.

"uh I don't think so. I might though." I say thinking about the new information we got. I knew eventually we were supposed to be out looking for the other members.

"Shin, the Hokage needs you." A random voice says, I turn around to see an anbu with his head poking through our kitchen window.

"I just got back from a mission though." I complained. I could feel mom tense up.

"This is in regards to your promotion." He said, and then he was gone. Oh shit my promotion.

"Whats this about a promotion?" Mom asked happily.

"Oh the Hokage needed me on a mission, but it was above Chunin level, so she promoted me." I say quickly shoveling the rest of the beef into my mouth then downing ino's drink with a smile to her.

"So wait now your jounin!?" Ino asked, though I couldn't really tell if she was upset or excitted.

"Nooooo, I am Special jounin." I tell her waving my hand around dismissively. I reached over and kissed my moms cheek. "See you later Mom." I told her heading to the dor.

"Uh shin, You might want to put some clothes on." Mom giggled. I let go of the door handle and looked dwn at myself. Well.

I walked to the back yard to find my clothes hanging on the line, then brought them back to mine and Shika's room waving at the ladies at the table. In our underwear drawer there was my packs of smokes, and on top of the dresser my weapons belts and everything in my pockets. A few to many match packs from the bars I had visited.

It took ten minuets to dress and place everything back in their designated pockets. I walked to the door again waving to the ladies who didn't try to hold back their laughter as I pulled my hair into a ponytail.

When I got to the Hokage's office Jiraya was there as well.

"You called?" I asked. "My mom will literally murder the whole village if I am sent on another mission." I tell her in all seriousness. Tsunade gave a pained expression and i realised she probably received an ear full from my mother last time.

"You just need to fill out paper work." She told me handing me a daunting bundle of papers. "Your under special jounin status, but unlike special jounin, your not going to be stuck in one department." I nodded. So I was special jounin with full jounin status. I took the bundle and sat it on the window ledge and began filling out the information, which seemed to be prefilled in, and i just needed to sign certain things. I still read over everything.

"Did you fix the seal?" I asked referring to the privacy seal I just felt activate, it felt stronger and thicker this time. No holes.

"Thats my handy work!" Bellowed Jiraya.

"I thought you were leaving?" I asked remembering that he said he was going to check with some oof his contacts.

"I stayed a bit longer, I thought we could have one last night of drinking." Jiraya said cheerfully.

"No way. I've had more then enough hang overs in the last month to last me a life time. Besides if my mom caught me we would both be dead meat." I stated dryly. I signed the last page then handed the whole bundle to the Hokage.

"I am giving you a two week leave, then you and Jiraya, are going back out." Tsunade told me handing me a pink pay slip.

"who are we tracking?" I ask looking at all the zeros on my check before sticking it into one of my vest pockets.

"Well it depends what I can find out in two weeks from my spy network." Jiraya said with a booming laugh. I really didn't understand why he laughed at the end of sentences where it near really fit.

I mean if he evil laughed it would make more sense, but this was simple joyful laughter.

"well then, I'm going to go spend these two weeks with my family."

.

.

When I got home my family was gone, but mom had left a note telling me she and Ino's mom had gone to Choji's.

Surprisingly Ino was still at my house, going through mine and Shika's drawers.

"What are you doing?" I ask after watching her riffle through my shirts.

"Looking at your clothes. Don't you own anything other then plain long sleeved shirts and black cargo pants?" She asks.

"Well, I have some sweats I wear to sleep." I offer.

"You should let me take you clothes shopping." Ino decides.

"Even if i got new clothes I probably wouldn't wear them." Ino pouts and grabs onto my arm shaking it gently.

"Pleeeaaasse I want to hang out with you!" She complains.

"If you want to hangout lets do something less exhausting. Why don't we just watch tv?" I offer fantasising about sitting on a couch all day.

"OH I KNOW!" she yells dragging me out of the room and into the kitchen. "Lets bake cookies together!" Suddenly I realised what she meant about 'hanging' out. She wanted to do a couple activity.

"Ino I don't even like cookies." I complain sitting at the table watching her get out ingredients.

"To bad for you. Stop being picky." he says flicking my forehead.

"When was the last time you saw a Fox eat a cookie. I think chocolate is bad for me." I say eyeing the chocolate chips. Ino neither acknowledges, or comments on my words and just continues searching around out kitchen.

In the end I get stuck at the table pouring ingredients into bowls and mixing things with her all day.

After two batch's of cookies and three batches of muffins Shikamaru enters the house.

"Mom?" He calls out.

"Mom's gone!" I call back. Shika runs to the kitchen smiling, though he sweat drops upon seeing Ino forcing me into an apron. "Hey there!" I say happily and ino take that moment to secure the frilly apron.

"Your home! How long?" As he speaks Ino shyly enters the house.

"Two weeks then I'm gone for another few weeks or longer." I tell him. Then I smile at Ten Ten. "Hello you must be Tenten." I tell her with the smoothness that I learnt from the past month with Jiraya. Ino Didn't seem to like it from the smack I received. I glared at her. "Would you stop hitting me!" I growl.

"Well then maybe you should stop flirting with other girls!" She yells. "I know your last mission involved other women."

"Ino can you drop it? I was literally just saying hi to her! Why am I explaining myself to you?" I looked to Shika exasperated. He jus gives him bored expression and sits across the table from me.

"soo...uh cookies?" Tenten asks grabbing one. "Do you guys always fight this much?" she asks.

"we wouldn't fight this much if he stopped flirting with everyone." Ino said under her breath.

"For the last time Ino, I don't flirt with anyone." I turn to Shika, and check him over. "how have you been?" Shika shrugged.

"Being a Chunin is a drag." I nod in agreement. "Everyone has been pretty busy with missions though." that made sense, even though we were still trying to regain order under a new Hokage, we had to make it seem like we were fine so we didn't loose employers. "Dad's been pretty busy to." switching Hokage's was probably hardest on him, since he was the chief tactician and advisor, it was getting used to a whole new system. I looked to Ten ten who was nibbling on a cookie beside Shika.

"How is Rock Lee doing?" I ask. "And the other guy on your team?"

"Oh Lee is good, the surgery wet well, he just has allot of therapy to get back to where he was." I nod happy to hear he would be fine. "And Neji is doing good, he spends allot of time helping Lee, which is new." I had heard from Ino that his personality had done a complete three sixty since the exams.

"How have you been. What was the last mission you were on?" Shika asks picking through the plate off cookies then grabbing one for himself.

"It's a classified mission." I tell him frowning. There was something fundamentally wrong about keeping something from Shika.

"Thats because he spent his whole time with a girl." Ino said under her breath again while mixing more dough.

"Ino could you stop baking before you use up all the food in our house?" I asked. She just turned around and stuck her tongue out. I just sigh and turn back to my brother. "But I did get promoted to special jounin." Tenten gasped and Shika raised his eyebrows.

"Sounds like a drag." Shika decided.

"Congratulations." Tenten shouted.

"Thanks Tenten. But yeah it is a drag. Though I'm not stuck in one specialty like most SJ's" I tell them mildly.

"what does that mean?" Tenten asks.

"Special jounin are promoted from Chunin because they are highly skilled in one area, like tracking or in Shins case seals. They would then be stuck in the seal core or tracking core, and only do those sorts of missions. But shin will be able to do any missions he wants really. Much like a full jounin." Shika explains to her.

"Yeah, but I'm not talented enough for that high of a promotion. And I was only promoted because I was need for a certain mission I couldn't do under Chunin status." I explain further.

Everyone in the room sweat dropped and looked at me with that look that you give young human when they say something cute, yet dumb.

"Just let him keep his ignorance." Shika says chuckling a bit.

"What? It's true! You can go ask the Hokage." I exclaim pointing in the direction of the hokage tower.

"Yes Shin we believe you." Ino said patting my head. "Eat a cookie." She said stuffing a cookie between my lips. I was surprised to find that the cookie didn't make me want to throw up like most foods...it actually tasted...good.

.

.

Second week into my break and I was bored. For my promotion and going away party, tonight we were having a barbeque at our house though. So that would be fun.

But for the rest of the day we just sat around doing nothing. It was strange that Shika had a girlfriend, because today ordinarily would have been Him and I laying in the back yard looking at the sky.

Now Tenten was there too. I didn't mind really, it was just strange. Also they were holding hands and the fox part of me felt possessive.

But I hadn't shifted into a fox for over two months so it was just a small whisper. I found it strange that Shika would even get himself a girlfriend, he seemed to think love was a drag. To much work to try and keep a girl happy, maybe thats why Tenten and him were a good match, she didn't seem to be highmaitnence, she was perfectly content sitting around in the back yard with us.

"I wonder if I could make a seal that would make me fly." I thought out loud.

"Maybe not fly but glide." Shika offered.

"then I'd probably have to make a suit." I say imagining it in my head.

"Like those flying squirrles." Shika says in his thinking voice.

"I'd look dumb." I decide.

"Yes you would." Tenten agreed. "Hey do you guys want to train a bit, I need to work on my jutsu's and my team is busy." She said sitting up from the grass.

"Hard pass. I just finished back to back missions and am thinking of laying in this exact spot for the next two weeks." She deflates at my words then hopefully turns to Shika.

"Why don't you ask Naruto he always wants to train." Shika suggests. Tenten makes a depressed face.

"He is on a mission in land off tea or something like that."

"With Sasuke?" I ask, Shika and Tenten nod. "Have you noticed anything weird about him?" I ask thinking about the weird chakra he had been admitting in my hospital room a few months back.

"Well apparently he had a run in with his brother and then he was in a coma for a month, same as Kakashi sensei." Tenten filled me in. Thats weird I thought Itachi had been after Naruto. I didn't even get told about Sasuke and Kakashi.

"Why do you ask?" shika asks.

"Oh nothing, just been wondering how he was doing." I say dismissively.

"I thought you hated him." Tenten asked.

"I don't hate him, don't particularly like him." I smile slyly at her. "Don't believe the rumors about me, they are pretty much all lies."

"So you and Ino aren't dating?" Tenten asks.

"No, definitely not."

"So you didn't jump into a snakes mouth, save two people the kill explode it into smithereens?"

"Well that I did do."

"You didn't summon a tidal wave and wipe out all the enemy ninja in the stands?"

"That one is half true but highly exaggerated."

"You didn't...you know...with those two civilian girls?" She asked blushing. I starred at her mortified.

"Is that what people are saying! No wonder Ino is mad." I say shaking my head. "Mom knows thats a lie right Shika?" Shika laughed.

"Yeah but I think she wanted it to be true." Shika informed me.

"Why do you care about Ino being mad if she isn't your girlfriend?" Tenten asked.

Huh...why would I care. Well because she is my friend and when she is mad it makes my life a living hell, look at yesterday, forced to make cookies.

"Let him keep his ignorance." Shika says quoting his line from yesterday. I level a glare at him.

"Boys are you home!?" I hear mom yell from in the house.

"In the backyard!" Shika yells. Mom steps on to the veranda then smiles at Tenten before giving us her annoyed face.

"I thought I asked for you guys to peel and cut all the veggies I put out?" She says her eyebrow twitching. Shika and I glance at each other then sweat drop.

We were in trouble now.

.

.

Our three family's had gatherings like this for everything, every birthday, every holiday, every promotion, everytime we redecorated one of our houses.

About three times a month.

But this time I got presents.

From Choji's parents I got some food pills which tasted like barbeque chicken, smoked pork and slow cooked beef, From Ino's parents I got a really cool harness weapons belt thing. It went around my waist then had belts attaching to my thighs which kept my thigh holsters up. It was pretty neat.

My parents gave me three restocks of circular metal throwing disks for my seals.

Shika got me a ninja mesh shirt for under my clothes, Choji got me a a coupon for thirty percent off barbeque, and Ino...well Ino got me a scrap book which said 'our memories on it' inside was our team photo, pictures of us eating barbeque, and on our fake date, there was one of us laying in a field, me doodling in my seal notebook and her with her head on the small of my back sleeping.

How in the world did she get these?

"I got them from some of your fan girls." She explained before I could ask. There was also pictures with all five of us including sensei, while we are training or walking through town, there was also one featuring Tora the cat, and a very pissed off shin.

The last one was one that surprised even me. I don't even remember what day it was or when it was taken, it Ino was sitting crosslegged meditating and I was ten feet beside her watching her smiling lightly.

"That ones my favorite." Mom said over my shoulder, then turned the page for me the next one was a picture of Ino Shika and I on the couch, Ino looked mad at me, i looked annoyed at Ino and Shika looked bored. "And this one too." She laughed.

"I'm guessing you snapped these?" I say raising my eyebrows at my Mom.

"Maybe." She said laughing then sashaying away. I wasn't sure how I felt about the album or the one picture that seemed...intimate, but it was a nice gift. So I turned to Ino and smiled.

"Thanks Ino." She smiled and wrapped her arms around my neck with a crushing force. "INO I NEED TO BREATH!" i yell trying to pull her off. Ino laughed bashfully and backed away.

"Oh this one is from team seven, and this one is from Kiba. Then this one is from their whole team. Oh and this one is from Tenten and then this one is from Tentens team." Ino said piling presents in front of me.

Hayate and Asuma walked into the house both of them carrying presents of their own.

"Hayate?" I ask confused, Asuma coming to this I could understand.

"We got kidnapped together you think I'd miss your promotion party?" He asks placing his present onto my pile.

"Hey Kid nice to see you in the village again." Asuma said messing up my hair which was once again decorated with my mothers braids.

"Thanks guys." I looked at the large present stack.

Tenten got me a medic travel kit. Team ten got me a black and silver kunai set with a note from Hinata's father saying he contributed and that he appreciated my help during the invasion. Team seven got me stupidly large food pills, five ramen cups and twelve dollars.

Tentens team had gotten me Tanto blade, which I didn't know how to use, but I guess I'll learn.

Kiba got me a black collar with silver studs...

What a dick.

Hayate's present was also a tanto blade and twin strap, and written out directions on how to body flicker.

"Haha, your so funny." I said sarcastically sweat dropping. "I can body flicker just fine, your weight confused me." I grumbled moving onto Asuma's present. Asuma got me hand written notes from Kakashi explaining lightening ninjutsu. Then notes by him explaining wind ninjutsu.

"I noticed you didn't have either of those natures in your seals." He told me smiling bashfully. I smile nd leaf through them finding a blank page with one sentence written on it. 'swing my my house later, I have a carton of smokes for you.' in his messy script I smiled then placed the papers back in the folder smiling to Asuma.

"thanks, I couldn't find info on these natures." I admitted.

"Oh and this is from Kakashi." Asuma said reaching into his vest pocket and took out a small rectangle wrapped in newspaper. I opened it quickly...

"this is that porn book he always reads." I hold it away from me. "this isn't his copy is it." Everyone bursts into laughter.

"No its a new one." Asuma assured. I wasn't sure hw I felt about this.

The rest of the party was mostly sitting around the table eating and talking. It was weird seeing Tenten in a party dress, she looked so natural in her combat clothing.

Even Asuma had just worn some jeans and a plain shirt. I had only really seen Hayate in his combat clothing as well, so it was weird to see him in everyday clothing.

"Shin can you take me to that cool pond we used to go to when we were kids?" Ino asked after dinner when the younger bunch went off to hang out away from grown up talk. I look around to see Tenten and Shika talking and laughing, and Choji was still at the table eating.

"Sure" I shrug. "Shika we are going to the pond." I say tapping his shoulders as we pass to the back veranda, I cut through our pack yard and into the deer pastors, and Ino keeps up two steps behind me. I can feel her hesitantly reaching towards me, until her hand is bundled into the back of my shirt.

"So I don't fall." she says uneasily laughing when I look back at her. It's not like it was doing much harm, so I nod and keep walking. There was a small creek in the deer pastors, we used to swim in it as Kids but then they saw a deer poop in the water while drinking and they decided to never go in it again.

I didn't mind though. Once we arrived I sat at the creek bed, no deer's were around this time of night. Ino sat right beside me smiling brightly.

"You know I can tell your trying to trick me to do couple things with you." I tell her dryly, but her mood brightens.

"Then why do you keep coming along?" Ino asked.

"Because I'm hoping that eventually you'll see that I can't feel that way for you, no matter how much you try. I'm always just going to love you like a sister." I expect her to cry or be hurt but she just smiles and tilts her head.

"Nope I won't ever believe that. I told you I was good at one sided love." She said in a sing song voice. "We will just see who out stubborn's who."

"It's not about being stubborn with me. Its about genetics. I am a fox, your a human." How did no one understand where I was coming from?

"I know that, but I don't care." She crossed her arms over her chest in defiance. I grabbed a hold of her shoulders gently and made her look at me.

"Think about it more. What about in a few years when you want to get married, and have kids. You can't do those things with me." I try to drill it into her head. She looks into my eyes and I see as realisation slowly sets in. "A relationship with me would go no where, and cause pain." I tell her softly. "So get the idea out of your head. We are friends. Good friends, and comrades. Lets leave it at that." Tears start falling from he blue eyes and I know I finally got through to her. Knowing her she had imagined our life together, marriage, our kids, what they would look like and what we would name them.

The same way she did with Sasuke. I don't think she ever really thought about, she was thirteen so it was understandable, but I wasn't going to sugar coat the truth for her.

"It doesn't matter to me." She mumbles. I stare at her unsure if I heard her right. "I said it doesn't matter to me!" She yells out. I let go of her shoulders and look back at the creek.

Stubborn women.

"You should grow your hair out again Short doesn't suit you." I tell her.

"I know right! I spent a butt load of money on products to help it grow faster. It's embarrassing your is longer than mine." She says rather dramatically.

"I was thinking of cutting mine. Brushing out this much hair is a pain." I tell her.

"Yeah? You would look really hansom with hair up to your chin!" She gushes.

"You can cut it now if you like, just don't mess it up." I tell her taking a Kunai out of my pants.

"Really?!" She asks scooting closer to me. "Shin I realise your just trying to change the subject you know that right?" I look over at her and she is giving me one of the most serious faces I had seen her wear.

"Well I do now."

"Shin, kiss me once. Just once, give it a try, and we can worry about everything else later. If you kiss me and feel nothing I'll give up." I stare at her, this was a good opportunity to show her what I said was true I was not attracted to her in the least.

But yet, my heart was hammering the way Tentens did when Shika looked at her.

I grabbed her shoulder pulling her towards me, it was like instinct, knowing how to tilt my head so our noses didn't knock when our lips touched. After a moment she grabbed the fabric of my vest lightly.

I deepened the kiss grabbing the back of her head with my other hand. She opened her mouth and I reacted in turn, the kiss was slow mesmerising and sweet.

It was something I couldn't explain. My fox brain didn't know what to do with the feelings. It was clambering around in the dark panicking. But another part of me was purring in pleasure enjoying and memorizing the feel.

I pulled away.

That was counter productive.

"So how about that hair cut now?" She stared at me with wide eyes and I worked on not showing just how startled I was. It took her a few moment but she shook her head to get back her senses. She looked at me then the kunai and nodded. I turned around and sat there as she cut my hair.

Ten minuets went by and she didn't speak.

"Are you okay Ino? I didn't think it was a good idea." I grumbled.

"What are you talking about I'm fine." She said in her normal cheerful voice but I heard an under currant of pain. My heart bloomed with...guilt? Sadness?

"Look Ino, i felt something, something good, but the Fox part of me is confused okay. I can't explain it, but i need time to think and sort out my two different selves." I tell her my voice even. Even though being this open and honest made me uncomfortable. "And I think you need to think about it too. Really think about it." We fell into silence again, I closed my eyes possibly enjoying the feeling of her cutting my hair to much.

When I started to purr it was confirmed.

.

.

That night I layed in bed. What did i do? That was so stupid. Why did I do that? Clearly i am suffering from brain damage.

The alcohol made me loose to many brain cells.

"Shin are you going to tell me what is bothering you?" Shika asked yawning through the words.

"What? What? Nothing is bothering me. What?"

"You just said what three times, just tell me what's up." Shika said sitting up in bed. I did the same, except moved to sit on his bed.

"Okay...well Ino and I went to the pond, I tried to tell her to stop liking me yadda yadda. I thought I finally got it in her head when I told her we could never get married or have kids. But she is a stubborn little thing said, 'If you kiss me and feel nothing, then I'll give up. For some idiotic reason I accepted her proposal and then we kissed, and I didn't feel nothing." i take a breath after saying all that in one go. "But half of me hated it, and all of me thinks I am messing up nature." I tell him.

"Well...here I thought it would be ninja related." Shika said "I think I am out of my league. Let me go get mom and dad." He said and bolted up to I'd assume wake them.

Ten minuets later was sat at the kitchen table with tea.

"I don't think we needed a family gathering for this." I grumbled letting my forehead drop onto the table.

"Shikamaru filled us in." Mom said.

"So your saying half of you hated it? What about the other half?" Dad asks. I was stuck between embarrassment and bewilderment at the fact that my whole family was up at two am to discuss this.

"Well...uh I don't know. The instinct on how to do...the kiss were there, and it felt...nice. The fox part of me was freaking out. Foxxes don't kiss. I hope you know this is very embarrassing to me." I add.

"Noted." Mom nodded. "We have something for you." She said in a grave voice as she tucked a loose strand of black hair behind her ear.

"the third Hokage gave this to us a while ago, apparently it had showed up with you when you first strived on the Hokage's desk." My father said taking out a large folder from who knows where.

Ah yes my mysterious origins.

"It went through the encryption team to try and decode it, but they couldn't understand it." He told me placing it in my hands.

I took it though I didn't know how it would help me in this situation. I opened it up to find about ten pages of paper with the weirdest little scratches of ink i had ever seen.

I starred at it harder. It felt so familiar like...

The weird scratches blurred and came into focus again, and like a light switch turned on in my head I knew what it said.

Dear Sven Harrt. I hope you have made it to your destination safely, as you can tell I lied a bit but I needed a test subject, one who had nothing to loose. You had nothing to loose, a couple of weeks and you'd have been dead. At least now you will be able to live a new life.

I don't know where you ended up, or even if you want we know as human, i don't even know how coming from a different universe will affect who you are in the new one. If things went as planned I'll be monitoring yoou from here.

But you wont be coming back here ever again, I'm sorry. Know that your sacrifice if for thee furtherment of science.

I reread and reread the words.

"can you read it?" Asks Dad.

"I might faint or puke." I say breathlessly reading it over again, the rest of the papers. "I used to be a human. Named Sven Harrt. I was about to die from what seems to be...cancer of the liver. I was put into a foxes body." I don't even know how to feel about this information. "why would. What?" i couldn't even find words. Some part of me wouldn't let me speak the words, from a different universe.

"what do you mean you used to be a human?" Shika asks.

"Yes right here! Its says, I'm sorry, know that your sacrifice is for the furtherment of science." I say dragging my finger under the words.

We sat in silence no one knowing what to say or do.

"thats why you always felt like a human to us." Shika finally said. "Because you are a human."

"But now genetically I am a fox though." I looked around the table at my family, they seemed just as shell shocked at I was.


	13. Chapter 13-A Fox's Way to Cope

**Hello Friends :) you know I applaud people who can make an authors note every darn chapter, because...I never know what to say.**

 **well there is some development happening here :) I keep Shin out of the main story line, and more as a back charecter (if he were to be in the anime you probably wouldn't see much of him) he is a behind the scenes guy. I hope you guys like it so far, feel free to leave me reviews on your thoughts of shin or his missions, its always fun to get feedback. anyways happy reading!**

 **^.^**

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I left early the next morning on zero sleep, I was meeting Jiraya in a small county town close to Ame. So I'd be journeying alone for a week.

I had so many many questions. But lets start with the big question.

I'm from another Universe?

How does one...how do you live with that knowledge. What do I do with that?

Also lets move onto the fact that he this scientist guy gave me a one way ticket to another universe, then stuck me in a fox body?

What kind of person does this?

An Evil person clearly.

But then there was the other big question...

Should I really be mad?

I was dying in that other universe, I would have been dead in a few weeks, but now I was here with a loving mother and father, who would wake up in the middle of the night to help me with romantic issues.

I had friends, like Gaara and Kiba.

I had teammates, like Choji and Ino.

And a brother slash bestfriend in Shika.

I was alive, and loved. So did I have right to be pissed?

Also if past me was stupid enough to be tricked into this then...well i probably deserved it.

And on these thoughts went until the sunset and I reached the village I planned to stay at. It wasn't to hard to find a hotel to stay at Since Jiraya and I had come through his town last time and stayed the night before moving on to a larger village.

"Didn't you come here a few months back asking about men in red cloaks?" The Old lady Inn keeper asked as she walked me to my room.

"Yes I did, we never did find them though, you haven't seen them around have you?" I ask for curiosity's sake. We had been telling them the two men had robbed our house and stole Jiraya's late wife (and I guess my mothers.) shrine. Playing the sympathy card to get people to work with us.

"I did, but they are much different then you described." she tells me in her gravelly voice.

"Oh really how did they look, I guess we didn't get a good enough look at them." I tell her stepping into my room for the night.

"Well one was very short shorter then me." She explains, and that fact did surprise me since she was like five foot nothing. "And he was fat, or had a bad back." I tried imagining this and i guess I wasn't creative enough. "The other one was your height maybe shorter, and he had blond hair from what I saw, but they both wore oversized hats, though the blond one had mouths on his hand and called the short demented one 'Sasori my man." She explained. It was hard to take the description seriously, it sounded so wild.

"Did you catch where they were going?" I ask her.

"No but they left down on the north east path." She added.

"Thanks, I split up with my dad to hire some ninja's to help us, I'm headed to meet back up with him now." I explained to her.

"Well best of luck to you, I hope you find her shrine soon." I bow to her as she closes my door then collapse to the floor turning the lock as I went.

Honestly this was about as cool at recon missions were. It was all acting and lying and playing along with things hoping you said the right lie to get the best outcome, then you sleep in a crummy hotel room and do it again.

They always sounded cool though.

What were you doing this weekend?

Oh just working my spy network and doing some recon.

Way less bad ass living it though.

.

.

As always i headed out an hour before sunrise before anyone was up to question why I was leaving or where I was going. A full day of running through trees was ahead off me. The trick of traveling to a new town was to make sure no one saw where you are traveling or can pick up your trail.

So Jiraya told me at least. It's best not to be tracked while your tracking. Its just awkward.

.

.

I'm going to gloss over my trip there because it was literally running and sleeping. I heard a bit more about the weird cripple guy, and guy with mouths on his hands in black cloaks, but aside from that it was pretty uninteresting.

Well there was also that one night I stayed at an inn i had visited before and the in keepers daughter began sobbing about me cutting my hair.

...I thought it looked good. Maybe I should go to a real hairdresser. That might offend Ino though, and it's not like i cared if it was uneven or something.

Any way I showed up in the medium sized village Jiraya told me to rendezvous with him at, I went to the Inn I thought he would be at, he was checked into a room, but not in that room. So i took that opportunity to excitedly strip off my clothes and take a shower.

We were in the warmest season of the year, and my outfit consisted of ninja mesh a black long sleeved shirt then a cargo vest, and black pants. I was sweaty and gross. But I didn't smell thanks to my seal.

Still felt gross though.

I remember the last year in the academy when everyone had reached the stage in life where their sweat smells gross.

That was my own personal hell.

Half way through I heard Jiraya enter the room, he didn't seem to need me urgently so i finished my shower in peace then dried off pulling on my pants and entering the big room. Jiraya sat drinking tea looking out the patio doors.

"Did you hear about the two other akatsuki wondering around?" I ask him sitting on the ground and towel drying my hair.

"Yes I had been following them for the past week but they went into Ame." He tells me passing me a cup of tea which I place on the ground beside me so i can finish drying my hair. "In fact i know wh one of them is." I raise an eyebrow at that. "Deidera from the rock, he specialises in explosives, chews up clay in his hand mouth incorporates chakra into them, then they turn into these claw sculptures he can manovour around and explode on will." Wow that sounded terrifying, but I was still hung up on hand mouths. Was he born with those or what. Could he eat through them?

"The other one?" i ask not asking the questions about the hand mouths.

"i haven't been able to find any rogues matching his description." Which was odd since super short fat, and or broken back guy would be easy to find.

"On my way here, someone told me they heard Deidera call him Sasori- my man..." I can see something click in Jiraya head as he searched through his bags for something. "Did that help?" I ask.

"Actually yes, Sasori off the sand, puppet master, grandson to lady Chio." Jiraya tells me. "But last time he was seen he was moderately tall with red hair." Jiraya frowns.

"Maybe he was in an accident?" i say half joking as he passes me a sand bingo book open to Sasori's page. He kind of reminded me of Gaara, I wonder if they were related. "Wait he is a puppet master right?" i ask out loud even though i can see it written in his entry.

"Yes, and poisons expert." Jiraya confirms.

"Well did you get a look at him?" Jiraya looks at me blankly then nods grabing out a blank parchment and drawing down a ruff sketch of the Sassori guy. Imagine a...dog. He had a head then it looked like a big fat dog body under his cloak. "This part looks big enough for a human to sit." i say pointing to the butt area.

"You think its a puppet, and he is inside?" Jiraya asks like it's stupid, but i can see him considering it.

"Sounds like something Shika would do if he was a puppet master, make his puppet do the walking and fighting for him." The more i talked the more ridiculous it sounded. "But there really is so explanation for how this." i say holding up the bingo book." Turns to this." I hld up the sketch. "I mean i would be questioning your drawing skills if it wasn't for the fact the in keeper described him to me before." jiraya chuckles at that.

"Okay I agree, but lets put it down as a theory, we can't be certain." i nod at his words.

"So they went into Ame, and so did Itachi and Kissame, do you think it's safe to assume thats where the akatsuki is operating out of?"

"i think so. We are going to camp the border and wait for...well anything." Jiraya tells me helpfully. "Well your going to camp the border and I'm going to go to the sand." He tells me laughing.

"Oh sure leave me to deal with all the S-rank criminals, just a lowly weak SJ. Woe is me." I sarcastically complain.

"i really missed your sarcasm and wit." Jiraya told me looking unimpressed. I just smiled and layed back onto the floor. "You don't have diplomatic experience, and dealings with the sand are flimsy." He explained.

"yeah I know. I will just use a clone to watch the cams while I sleep." i tell him waving my hand around absent mindedly. "You don't have to tell me twice to stay away from them." i assured feeling like that was the next thing he was about too say.

"Well then, I'll head out, and i'll leave a toad." He told me summoning a fist sized purple toad. "He doesn't really talk." He told me scratching the back of his head as we watched the toad hop into the coorner of the room and just sit there. He gave off a small chakra signature larger than an average toad, but only about the size of a typical racoon, or large rabbit.

"So he just sits there?" i ask resisting the urge to poke it.

"Well you have to feed him." The Sanin informs me.

"Like meat, or grass?" summons fascinated me, but the ones i had met and seen were dogs, to be honest this little toad fascinated me. Jiraya gave me his "i dun got time for this." "You should get going, you have a long trip ahead of you." I tell him.

Sassori was the only one so far besides Itachi we could go to their old home villages and ask about them, seeing that sand was the only village we were on friendliest terms with.

The others? Forget about it.

Also we need permission from the hokage to enter other villages, or country's.

Because if we got caught we could start a war, which would be bad.

.

.

Would you believe me if I told you for the next month, I spent the whole time flying my clones along the borer and watching for any sort of movement and nothing happened. I waas left wondering other things like; where did they get their food and good. Was their no trade in Ame?

Was anyone actually alive in Ame.

At the end of a month here I got told to stay an extra month since Jiraya was busy in sand.

But after nothing but seeing Deidera and Sassori, who we received little information on, except that apparently "Hidan" is a total ass, someone who's name I could not catch was a money grabbing control freak, and "Itachi is stuck up."

I had assumed as much from his last name though. I followed them and watched as they took out a high level criminal, or Deidera did, then they brought the body to a bounty depot and got a fair chunk of change in grass, then traveled back to Ame

So finally after llloooonnngggg days of doing nothing but watching the screens I headed home on oour good Hokage's orders.

During this time I had allot of time to think, maybe i am in a fox body but my mind heart and very soul was human, i accepted that I felt human things, even if that was romantic love for humans.

Though I wasn't sure if that meant love for a certain blonde human, but what was the harm in trying at the very least.

Right?

Over my two month and one and a half week mission I had picked up a large backpack and camping gear, since allot of my time had been spent sleeping in forests, which was allot less comfy as a human. Even in fox form I felt compelled to make a nest of sorts, so I caved and bought foam sleeping mats and a travel kettle to make tea, also biodegradable toothpaste and a hairbrush. Long story short I had picked up allot of random things.

So I sauntered into town with my bag, it felt nice to be home, i craved the smell of my family and presence of Shika, it was maddening how much I missed him. I never truly realised how much I needed him every day, whether it was idle chit chat, or bouncing ideas off of him, or simply laying around complaining about what a drag everything was.

But before seeing him i had to go report to the Hokage. Instead of the usual way i decided to pop through her window. The climb up was easy, when i looked through the window Shika, Ino and Naruto looked like they were being dissmissed, it took all my inner strength not to rip the window open and search Shika for injury, instead I waited for them to leave then pulled the window open.

"Did someone here order one Miso ramen and a sinfully attractive albino boy?" I ask dramatically. Tsunade spun in her seat and glared at me. "Where is your side kick?" I asked climbing into her office.

"Probably gathering paperwork she will force me to do." She sighed deeply watching as I went to the front of the desk and dragged a chair over to sit on. "So what do you have to report."

"about a month in Deidra and Sasori came out of Ame, I left a clone at the border, then i followed them to grass, where they killed the criminal known as Toka, who was a real scum bag apparently. They dragged his body to a bounty depot and then scurried back with their winnings." I tell her plucking a dango off of her abandoned plate. "Though i did catch a name of one more member, his name is Hidan, and apparently he is a real asshole. Also there seemed to be a person who made them go on the mission, but it wasn't the leader. He apparently likes money." She sat in her chair thoughtfully.

"Anything else?" She asks.

"Well Deidera did go on an on about how Itachi is an Arrogant asshat, among other colourful names. Oh and they have chick in the group it would seem."

"Good work Shin, pick up you pay tomorrow, you family is impatiently waiting your return." Tsunade stated wincing.

"Thaank you ma'am." I took the whole stick on dango and stood up walking towards the window. "i'll be taking this." I tell he before hoping out the window.

I took the roofs to the Nara district, then walked home at a steady pace, I was not surprised to feel my Parents chakra on the back veranda, what i was surprised about was that Shika wasn't home yet. I hadn't seen him on the way home either. I guess he went to train or something. I walked in the house and speed walked to the back of the house throwing the door open.

Mom and Dad looked up and startled for a few moments before Glee lit up their faces.

"SHIN!" Mom yelled, i was engulfed in a two sided hug, i was happy when they held on for a few minuets, we stood like that in silence before they backed away. Dad buried his hand in my hair.

"You've grown half a foot!" Mom exclaimed, i looked down at her and realised she looked much shorter than before. I just laughed and touched the top of my head.

"i had to buy new clothes, i just thought it was because I got fatter." I laughed, I had obviously worked out allot while watching the screens, i couldn't do much combat training so i just doubled up chin up, push ups, sit up...basically all the ups. I had bulked up a bit, so I didn't notice the height difference like i probably would have, had I kept the same pants and shirt. My vest was snug though, but i kept it undone, even though the shoulders pinched a bit.

"How long are you home?" Dad asked.

"I'm not sure, hopefully a while. What did i miss?" i asked sitting down on the veranda.

"Your brother broke up with Tenten. Or rather she broke up with him, he hasn't really told us." Mom rambled, I looked to dad and i could tell that there really wasn't much to that story as mom seemed to think. "Sasuke from your class was kidnapped or he ran away. Your brother was sent to retreive him, but they were against some pretty scary people and they couldn't get him. It was Shika's first mission leading." I knew Shika would have taken that roughly. "Oh and the Yamanaka's got their kitchen flooring redone so we are going over to see it tonight." Mom informed me.

"Another dinner party." I said in a bored voice. I looked at the clock, it was 10 am so I had time for a nap. "I am going to take a quick nap in Shika's bed before it then." I probably needed a good rest before going, i probably wasn't looking to great seeing as i had been running for the past 48 hours with little to no breaks.

"We got you your own bed, and room, its where my office used to be." Dad told me as Mom beamed.

"we changed the upstairs spare room into his office." Mom stood up and pulled me with her before dragging me to my new room, as i was dragged away by my arm with no time to stand i gave my dad a desperate look, to which he just chuckled. "See look!" She practically yelled once we stopped in the medium sized room where my Dads "office used to be. I say office with air quotes because he mostly went in there to "work" aka sleep, so my mom wouldn't bother him.

But it ad been completely changed even the once dark blue walls were painted a refreshing grey. The bed was a pallet of darker greys and didn't look as small as Shika's bed.

"Why does the bed look so huge?" i ask in wonderment.

"Well your very tall, we thought you would grow out of a single." Mom explained giggling as I plopped myself face first into the heavenly soft bed. Their was a bed table with an alarm clock, then a dresser and a desk, and book shelf which seemed to be covered in the books i had acquired.

"Was this a sneaky way of getting rid of my book clutter in the living room?" I ask eyeing my mother then the book shelf.

"Well that was a major plus, but we all thought you should get your own room...and bed. You couldn't sleep on Shika's floor forever."

"I never minded the floor." i assured her. She gave me that motherly look.

"I know you didn't but I did." She laced her fingers together and looked around the room. "Now you wont get and crooks in your neck or back and can train everyday." I sweat dropped. There goes the best excuse ever. "You go to sleep." She tells me stepping out of the room and closing the doors.

I sit up slipping my bag off of my shoulders and open it up. I had gotten a few different clothing items, one hoodie, a T-shirt for sleeping along with a pair of sweats, two pairs of pants and two black long sleaved shirts. The ninja mesh stretched so it still laid comfortably under my clothes. I moved to the dresser trying on some of my old pants, and sure enough they were a size to small and two inches to short. I grabbed an extra sealing scroll and stored all the old clothes in there before placing my new clothes in the dirty laundry basket.

Suddenly i was thankful underwear were one size fit all because that was all i had to sleep in right now.

I emptied some of the books I had gathered and stuck them on my shelf along with the knick knacks like the weird recorder that sounded awful.

I had bought it from a man outside my grass hotel so he would stop playing it.

I also bought this black and gold twelve sided dice, that told the future from a lady who wouldn't stop pestering me, but I was about to loose transmissions from my camera so I threw money at her and grabed the things before bolting.

When i look back at that moment, I realised that she had wanted to tell my fortune, and I had accidently stolen her dice, but I threw enough money at her for he to buy twelve prophetic die so i think it's okay.

Finally after emptying most of my random things I place the bag beside the dresser then got to work undressing.

Which is much harder for a ninja.

While i tried to wear my holsters as much as possible sometimes they were a dead give away i was a ninja so I would have to get rid of them fast, meaning sometimes I couldn't transfer the weapons and items into my pockets. So instead I had an assortment of seal disks Kunai, and other sharp throwing objects tucked into hiding places in my clothes.

While one hand the clothes are designed so n matter how weird I contort i wont accidently impale myself or something equally embarrassing, but taking off the clothing was a different story. So you had to empty all your pockets.

I took off my waist+thigh holister placing it on the hook by my door, then I got to work emptying my weapons on a conveniently placed bucket on my desk.

After what seemed like hours i laid down on my soft bed and fell asleep nearly instantly, wrapped in the comfortable scent of my family and home.

When i woke up there was bustling around, what I assumed was mom getting things together before we had to go. Tiredly i got up craving a smoke and cursing that I started the habit.

But than I remembered why I started smoking and felt depressed, then wanted a smoke more.

It was a truly vicious cycle.

I quickly pulled on my only clean-ish pair of pants then left the room. I'd have to ask my father for a shirt, because i knew mine was not going to smell good.

"morning, sleeping beauty." Shika smiled sitting at the kitchen table while mom bustled around the kitchen. I smiled so big i thought it would bust my face apart and took a seat across from him.

"Long time no see. I gather your still as sarcastic and lazy as ever?" I say raising an eyebrow playfully.

"You were only gone two months, be gone for a year or two and we will see." He suggested.

"No, he will still be lazy." Mom butted in, she looked at me then squinted. "Is there a reason your half naked? Go put a shirt on young man we have to go in a few minuets. Brush your teeth too, and your hair." i sighed and shared a look, just got home and her infamous nagging has begun. I had been hoping for more over affectionate mom.

"I need to ask Dad for a shirt though." I explained.

"Oh he is meeting us there wear what ever of his. Shin you go get ready, Shika put these containers into seals." She clapped her hands together like at the end of a huddle and walked off to do more mother things. I went upstairs to my parents room, stepping into their closet. Our parents didn't really hide anything from us so we were always allowed in their room or closet, or anywhere really. I assumed that they did have secret things but they just had amazing hiding places.

Among our house hold, the males wear a solid colour of pants and shirts, sometimes capree pants or long pants tucked into high sandals, or maybe even a good old fashioned t-shirt. We wore simple things, so that no matter how late we sleep we an just grab any old article of clothing from our drawers and be good to go.

Well Shika wore that little vest things.

Anyways what i was getting to was, my fathers shirt drawer sonsisted of a dark grey collection of shirts. I chose a long sleeved shirt, and though it was a bit baggy i didn't look like i was playing dress up.

Though it would have to be tucked in a bit, I'm sure I didn't look fashionable but it would do.

I scurried to the bathroom and used my newly acquired skill of brushing my teeth and brushing my hair at the same time.

Not trying to brag but i was so good at it now, I didn't even hit my ear with the brush anymore. I looked in the mirror and shrugged. I neither had the motivation or the talent to do anything more with my appearance so I met up with my Mom and Shika at the entrance.

"I am ready." I announce bending down to put on my shoes.

"Okay lets go!" mom said rushing us out the door.

.

.

The grown ups went to the Yamanaka kitchen and dinning room area to look at the flooring then to sit around the table and talk like usual. Shika and I just sat in their living room, on a beige sofa.

"I heard about your first leading mission." I say, Shika just looks at me and nods. "i don't know the details, but i can tell you that what ever choices you made were for the best decisions that could have been made. Being a ninja is dangerous, but being a leader is worse, because now it snot just your life on the line." i take a breath and a moment to assemble my thoughts. "But as much as lives are in your hands, you carry the village on your shoulders. Only some people are skilled enough to handle and balance these two out. Your mission failed, but very one got back alive, it doesn't matter if they were injured because they are alive." i give him a small smile. "i would put my life in your hands any day." He blinks to hide the built up moisture in his eyes.

"Thanks shin." He says genuinely, then he smirks a bit. "But I'm not going to hug you or anything." I laugh at that, ah yess, Shika my brother who can't stand emotional -or other- intimacy.

"Shin?" i look up to the rogue voice to see Ino standing in front of me, i jumped a bit, addmitably startled.

I knew that ino would be here, but it didn't hit me that...Ino would be here, which meant we needed to talk.

"Ino, i just got back a few hours ago, i slept most of the time though." i explained. She smiled a bit, but in a sad way. I looked to Shika...did I miss something? I asked with my eyes, but he looked just as confused with the emotional spectrum Ino was showing me.

"Shin can we talk?" She asks. Whoa something about those words and that tone, and the way she tucked her hair behind her ear then wrapped her arms around her waist made me instantly want to fake dead, or pretend to have a stroke.

"Yeah sure." I wiped my hands on my pants and stood up. She led us our the back door and into the back yard where a few green houses sat side by side. We went to the middle one and she sat on some patio chairs, I sat in mine feeling like it was an executioner block. "Whats up?" i ask her.

"I thought about everything you said while you were gone." She starts, all i can do is nod to her. She looked to the side and her gaze seemed far off. "Sasuke left last month. When i heard i felt like a part of me died." i was torn between laughing at her weird obsession with the kid and hating that she was in pain. "I don't think i am over him and I cant be with you until I am." She tell me like this is a business talk.

I blink twice before pursing my lips. "Okay then. Well lets go join the party, i hear your new flooring is to diie for." I said over dramatically getting up. Ino sweat dropped.

"Wait aren't you going to yell at me, or argue about this?" She asks angrily. I stare down at her baffled. I felt numb about this whole situation. I don't know if it hurt to be turned down for a guy who was now a rogue ninja, or what, so awkward humor and exaggerating everything was my response. I also don't do emotional intimacy.

"Well no. I wont convince you to be with me if thats not what you want." I tell her like its the most obvious thing. I slip my wrist out of her grip then walk briskly back to the house leaving her, only o find all three family pressed against the glass watching. By the time i walked in they were acting normal but i saw Uncle Inoichi glare at me. "She said she didn;t want to be with me not the other way around Uncle Inoichi." I assured him as I took a seat at the table.

"Really but why?" Uncle Choza asked.

"She still likes that Sasuke kid." Ino's mom tells them. This is great, I get to relive that moment.

"Shin is way better then Sasuke." Dad decides,

"Sasuke isn't even in the village." And on the conversation went. Until it moved onto Tenten and Shika's break up.

Apparently Tenten broke up with Shika because he wasn't attentive and he never wanted to do anything. Which by the way in Shika's main descriptors so i don't know why she would date him.

"Shin." A random voice spoke. We turned towards it mid first course, an Anbu sat perched on a window sill. How did we never notice that?

"Yess Anbu sir." i say quickly shoveling some more food into my mouth.

"The Hokage needs you for a mission." He said before jumping away. I looked around the table grimly, everyone awkwardly glanced towards me and my mother awkwardly.

"It probably wont be a long one mom." i said getting up and walking towards her, kissing her cheek, she rubbed my arm and cleared her throat.

"Alright." she said in that choked up way, I gave dad a quick hug and waved to my uneasy family, though i couldn't bring myself to look at Shika.

I hated being away from him. I was his companion, and I had seen him for what, maybe a month at most in the past six months. It felt like without him their was a part of my personality that was numb and deaf.

It's hard to explain. But every time i got home I kept feeling more and more anxious because it always felt like I needed him more than he needed me. Like I was reliant on him, but to him I am nothing but a nuisance.

But I also knew that was irrational and it probably hurt him not to see me too. So I just didn't look over at him so I could skip all these chick flick moments.

When I got to the entry way of the Yamanaka house I couldn't help but look up the stairway where I could see a sliver of Ino's door, she had locked herself in there mid meal, I'm not sure anyone else but me noticed her sneaking in the front door and into her room.

I still felt numb to that situation, but i figured if i just ignored the situation it would eventually go away.

The Yamanaka house was way closer to the Hokage tower so it took me a quarter of the time to reach it, this time I decided to make my way up the tower like a normal human being. Aka the stairs and hall. Even before I knocked on the Hokage's door i heard bickering...oh joy.

"Come in!" Tsunade screamed before my knuckled touched the wood of the door, i audibly swallowed and entered the room. Inside was Jiraya who looked like his normal flamboyant pervy self, Kakashi who looked mentally exhausted, and Tsunade who looked ready to kill me.

"What ever i did I am sorry?" I ask, slash say.

"You think you would have enough brains to cover your ears!" She yells slamming her hand down oon the desk. I glance to the fellow white haired men in the room.

"Well in my defence my mentor didn't tell me too so i didn't think it was a problem..." I say sweat dropping at Jiraya who doesn't seem all to pleased with being thrown under the bus.

"What ever when you go out this time make sure to find a way to hide them, people have been talking about you." She complains sitting in her chair exhausted like.

"About how wildly attractive and funny I am?" I ask nonchalantly, and I see grins tug at the other threes mouths.

"Well for now our Akatsuki investigation will be on a hold of sorts, we need you on another mission." Tsunade explains resting her elbows on the table and lacing her fingers together. I look towards Jiraya who seems a bit peeved, then Kakashi who still looked tired as all hell. Though he always did.

"are you sure it's smart to put it on hold? My seals are perfect for Ame border patrol." I argue even though I am pretty relieved to be off that assignment. It took months away at the time, and allot of boring days, and the following the Akatsuki members was really dangerous and scary.

"Exactly Tsunade, even the kid agrees." Jiraya says flourishing his arm towards me.

"I made my decision Jiraya! Shin you will be going to sound, to find Orochimaru's base and locate Sasuke." I stare at her than to Kakashi. This was his student, and he had better skills than me in this department by a long shot.

Kakashi just gave me a staark nod than looked outside the window.

"When do I leave?" i ask flamboyantly. This sounded like a long journey and mission. I had just gotten back from a long mission. Maybe this was why i was recalled.

"Immediately, this is a month long mission unless further information surfaces." Tsunade says in a commanding voice handing me my mission scroll. I take it tucking it into my pants pocket. I give a little two finger salute to everyone in the room before hoping out the window.

I didn't know how to feel about the situation yet. Basically instead of looking into a large group of S-rank ninja's I would be looking into one seriously messed up S-rank ninja, who was kicked out of this organization.

Which clearly means his morals are lower than all these other sick and twisted people.

Also on top of finding his base, i would be searching for Sasuke. Lets just say his main base is in sound, but he keeps Sasuke in a smaller base in...I don't know lightening.

The only good news was that in a month even if I didn't reach the missions objectives i'd still be recalled home. Bad news is if i was close to finding something, or there was a possibility that if i go to "such and such" town i could find them, then my mission would be extended.

After not even a day at home.

Great.


	14. Chapter 14-A Fox Shattered

**hey guys sorry for the long wait! I have to give props to my beta Pokezeb, I literally gave this chapter to them in ruins, I hadn't read through it even once t try and edit. so round of applause! also thanks for my reviewers! you guys rock. any who enjoy, feel free to pm me or review with questions!**

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The first night I was in the small room of a new hotel. My disguise, while half hazard and a simple impulse, was a long cashmere white scarf. I had wrapped it around my head loosely just to cover my head, than it wrapped multiple times around my neck.

It was my mothers, or maybe my fathers, i found it in their closet when I was looking for a hat, which apparently no one in my family owns. I had decided to go through new towns now that I was covering my ears, i'm sure someone would comment on me hiding them.

Also i don't know how long those towns people will buy my "searching for my mother's shrine thief" story.

Since i was starting at ground zero looking for Orochimaru i would have to start in the places people tend to gossip and drink. Their was a pub, mostly guys, would work if it wasn't for the fact that my appearance generally makes men feel like i think i am better than them. So instead, tomorrow once i am closer to the sound border I would be going to...brothels.

Not for any sinister reasons thank you very much, but because the ladies who work there get allot of knowledge from their clients, and after a few shots of Saki they tend to spill the beans with light prodding on the subject. Of course last time I had Jiraya with me to do most of the talking.

But I like to think i am a fast learner, so hopefully I wont make a total idiot out of myself...

I took the hotels provided futon mattress out of the closet, though I put my own bed mat on top, mostly because it smelt like countless other humans, which meant it hadn't been washed.

I liked clean things.

Once I laid down, instead of sleep, an invasion of thoughts clouded my mind.

First off i was on a mission to save Sasuke, the guy that made Ino decide to leave me for. Could I even say leave? We weren't together, we had just kissed, and the whole time I was trying to convince her to forget about her feelings for me.

...and she had so great...

It didn't feel great or alright, it didn't even feel fine. It hurt, I had spent so much thought on her, spent so much time confused, and now I was trying to get back the guy she supposedly loved.

Is my life a drama or something? This just seems to wild to be real.

A small part of me wanted to half ass the mission, to not even try, but I could never do that. Mostly because I just imagined my parents and Shika's dissappointed stares if they found out. Was enough to snap me out of the thought.

.

.

The next day I made a fair distance which seriously surprised myself, and at an hour before nightfall I was about a days travel away from the sound. I checked into a nicer hotel this time, then made my way down to the local...I don't know what to call it, hostel? Lets go with that.

Even though technically I was like seven, treated as though I was Shika's age, and acted like I was sixteen, apparently I passed as a legal adult, which was very convenient. I had to stand in line to be "seated" which was basically me specifying what sort of girl i wanted.

"Next" a thirty year old women asked in a sultry voice as she waved the man in font of me through the willowy red curtains hiding what was inside from any one popping their heads in. I stepped up to her little stand which reminded me of the stand waiters had while they greeted customers.

The girl at the stand was probably my mothers age, large breasted, in a tight black and red short dress, with matching terrifying shoes. She had blond dyed hair- which you could tell by the black roots growing in- and heavy make-up. She was beautiful of course, but with the amount of cosmetics dripping from her hair and face, i knew this wasn't how she really looked.

"And what are you looking for tonight sir?" She asks in a low sexy voice with a smirk on her full red lips. I smile back quirking my head to the side a bit hoping to seem a bit aloof.

"just two of your prettiest girls to sit, drink, and eat with." I tell her pulling out my wallet, which had startling amounts of ryo in it, she eyed the stack almost greedily.

"Just to eat darling? There are no other services we could provide?" She asks leaning onto the table so her cleavage is all the more visible. I smile at her making sure to make a show of checking her out, and trying not to blush.

"I'm a traveler, I get lonely, but I have a wife at home, so just some company tonight." I tell her through a wide smile. She smiles back and scribbled on a blue slip before handing me.

"Feel free to upgrade anytime you would like." She informs me as I walk through the curtains. The first room has about five big enclosed circular booth tables covered and 'hidden' by lace strips of fabric, all you could really see was vague silhouettes of the people inside, which was usually good encase you were being entertained right beside someone you knew...yeah awkward.

I hand my slip to a seven year old boy in a kimono, dressed up so pretty I almost thought he was a girl, which was probably the point. He simply smiles then leads me towards a booth pulling back the curtains for me to sit, as he closes the curtain and walks away I try not to grimaced at the loud colours inside the booth.

You might be wondering about the kid though, I know I did when I first encountered one. When the ladies of these houses get pregnant, because no matter how hard you try sometimes things like this happen, either the 'grandmother' or the 'pimp' will throw them out of the place all together, or they will take care of the women during pregnancy and birth, then help them raise the child. I questioned that being raised in this sort of environment was worse then living a hard life with a single mom, but Jiraya explained that the kids of whore's were usually pretty happy, having grown up with so many mothers, it's not like they would be forced to go into their mothers profession.

So I got used to seeing these sorts of dressed up kids serving tea, or showing you where to sit. And they did seem quite happy, or as happy as a kid serving tea could be.

"Hello sir, my name is Yari. Mind if I sit?" a short slender girl asked as she pulled back the curtain of my booth. She had long thick softly curled black hair, an angular almost cat like face, with wide green eyes and a slender nose and everything."I know you requested two girls but sadly I was all who was left." She told me in a sad voice pouting her full bottom lip.

"I'm not sad about that at all, in fact I'd rather be alone with someone as beautiful as yourself." I tell her in what I hope is an alluring voice, but to be honest I just feel awkward and...well, very awkward. "Please sit." I offer sliding over a bit and patting the spot next to me. She slid in careful to pull her tight black dress down. She looked downward bashfully covering her face.

"You know, I'm the one who is supposed to be making you blush not the other way around." She fake complains, in fact even her bashfulness is an act, but I don't mind, everything I do and say is going to be an act as well, at least we were on equal footing.

"Not trying to make you blush just simply telling you the truth." I tell her with a wink. Oh god, that wink was so awkward. Where was Jiraya when I needed him. She smiles brightly up at me which sits a bit strange with her features, her face is better suited for smirks and sarcastic half smiles, not bright fake ones.

"I head you were a traveler?" She asks grabbing onto my arm. "That sound like so much fun."

"Oh it is, though I must say, constantly traveling alone gets boring, thats why I wander into these places every now and then, when I've gone to long away from home." I explain to her.

"Don't your parents miss you though?" I inwardly grimace at how close to home her question hit me. My parents probably did miss me, in fact I could imagine just how mad my mother was right now.

"Probably, but they passed a while ago, my home is in wind country, with my wife." I tell her. She makes an 'oohh" noise and leans her head on my shoulder. "Right now I am actually traveling to Sound, though I keep hearing awful stories about it." Yari detaches herself from my arm and stares at me calculating, I continue to look confused an innocent as she begins to smirk.

"Why, sir? Are you trying to get information out of me?" She asks seeming startled. I throw my head back and laugh.

"Of course not, I was simply trying to make conversation. Specifically a conversation away from my wife." I explain putting my hands into an X mark. She leans onto the tablle giving me a catty look as she runs a finger down my chest.

"Lets just say for the sake of conversation I have extensive knowledge on the Sound and what happens in there, but the only way I'd give it to you is if you do me a small favor." I stare at her, she didn't seem to be lying, and what if she was I'd get what ever information she promises then I'd skip town and investigate anyways.

"For conversational sake, of course, what is this favor?" I ask leaning back in the booth out of her fingers reach. Her touch was really irking me. She smiled, not evilly though her face did make it look sinister, but i think it was more of a relieved smile.

"My brother was taken by Orochimaru two years ago, apparently he had rare ninja blood or something like that. At least thats what the creepy guy told us." she looked a little flustered and I shimmied into a comfortable position, since it seemed like this would be a long story. "Long story short." She gulped audibly, or at least i could hear it. "He took my brother and no matter how hard I trained I know I'd never be able to get him back on my own. So if your going to the Sound I'm coming along. I can show you where the base is." she gave me a grave and serious look. "But i need you to promise to take me with you."

Well this is a predicament. I could get her to show me the base though then go from there. Whether I tie her up to continue investigation or distract her with a shadow clone I'd find a way.

"Well when do you want to leave?" I ask her. "Oh and I suggest you change." I say eyeing her bright pink and black dress. She rolls her eyes but looks at me seriously again.

"Tonight, i'll go pack."

.

.

"Shin can't we stop for breakfast?" Yari moaned dragging her torture device shoes as she walked several feet behind me. "My feet are killing me." She complained.

"We already ate breakfast, and maybe if you wore proper shoes your feet wouldn't hurt." I could almost hear her red stained lips pulling into a smirk.

"Beauty means sacrifice. Those weird brown pill things weren't food. They were gross." She was right about food pellets being gross, but they were in fact food.

"Well your the one who signed up for adventures with Shin, feel free to unsubscribe." I tell her, the waning of my patience evident in my voice. She finally stopped complaining and slowly walked behind me. I offered to piggy back her but apparently that was rude of me, something about her being strong and independent and not needing a man.

She can be as strong and independent as she wants, but at a faster pace, this civilian speed was mind numbing. It would take four days to get to the Sound border.

"So why do you wear that scarf thing on your head, and why is it white it doesn't match your other clothing." Which was true, in the first town I stayed at I had quickly picked up a black yukata and matching Haori though I left it undone so it was more like a loose coat, I got this outfit to match the character of a rich flippant traveler. The white scarf looked like an eye sore, but I was slowly getting used to it.

"To keep the sun off my face and head." I quickly lie.

"Why don't you just wear a hat like normal people?" She counters as she sassily places her hands on her hips.

"Because it would be a crime to hide this beautiful face behind the brim of a hat." I say in an over the top voice. Yari sweat drops and crosses her arms in front of her chest.

"Your so full of your self."

"Just pick up the pace, at this rate we will get there by next Christmas." I mutter it though so she can't hear, I could just imagine the long winded excuse she would make up.

We continued on till lunch when she made us stop, I took that time to dig through my bag and fetch my extra pair of sandals, they made their way to the bottom of my bag, because at my last mission they had gotten to small so I just hucked them into my bag. They would probably still be a bit too big for her, but anything would be better than those six inch heeled shoes.

I threw the shoes to the ground in front of where she sat on a stump massaging her feet. She looked at them appaled.

"Listen, we will probably be walking for a week at this pace, and if you won't let me carry you there is no way you can make it in those." I argue pointing to her black shoes which she discarded to the side. I start gathering various pieces of twigs and bark for kindling as I talk. "And as long as we are on the topic you should switch your clothing to, you stand out way to much. A girl in your outfit on a clear path to the Sound will be picked up by the spys watching the paths." I complain to her pointing at her skin tight tanktop dress that just covered her butt, with the sides cut out. She had the figure to pull it off, and looked nice, but that was the problem, she was beautiful, and peoples eyes naturally magnetized towards her. You would have to be blind to not pick her out of a crowd.

Yari looked thoughtful. Then sifted through her bag.

"I don't think i own something unflashy." She told me seeming genuinely sad. I looked through my bag, i had an extra pair of sweats and a hoodie, I took them out sniffing them to make sure they didn't smell to awful then threw them at her, surprised when she caught them with ease. "There is no way i am going to fit these." She said giving me an exasperated look.

"Roll up the waist of the pants then tuck them into the sandals put the hoodie over a shirt or dress." I resisted the urge to point out that her dresses were the length of shirts anyways. She looked back at the clothing then looked around the heavily wooded forest.

"Where do I change?" She asks shyly.

"Just go behind a tree." I tell her pointing in a random direction.

"What if someone sees?" She asks sounding genuinely scared. I sigh snapping a few sparks into the fire and looking up at her.

"Trust me there is no one for seven miles, your safe, and I won't be peeking so you don't have anything to be worried about." She unfurrows her eyebrows and looks around cautiously before walking away and hiding behind a tree to change. I sigh deeply grabbing out my pot water bladder and cooking ingredients.

"Your not vegetarian right?" I asked sifting through the dried meats, soup bases and vegetables I had picked up while I had waited for Yari to change.

"No." She yells from behind her tree. I stick a beef soup base into a pot with four cups of water chopping up some vegetables and placing in some of the meat. I didn't have very much spices so hopefully the curing on the meat, the base and the veggies would give it a decent flavor. This was the first time i had actually cooked, but I watched my mom cook enough times to at least make a soup. Yari cautiously came towards me clearly uncomfortable. The sweats made her look like she was wearing ninja pants since they were tucked into the sandals, the sweater was big, but it was fully done up, and covered all her curves, as long as she kept her hair messy and in her face no one would pay her much mind.

Of course anyone who looked at her longer then a few seconds would see she was beautiful, but spys watching roads get lazy, not really caring to much about boring looking people. Which is why it was stupid of me to keep my ears out while on missions. Rookies mistake.

"It looks good, stop acting so self conscious." I assure her. She smirks at me.

"I know. I look good in everything." I sweat drop and stir the soup. The last few minutes she had been so vulnerable and calm I forgot she was normally sassy and cocky.

.

.

"HAH! I knew you were hiding something!" Yari yells as my white scarf is ripped off my head as I make the fire. I reach behind me yanking her wrist with enough force to make her trip forwards. As she softly falls to the ground I grab my scarf and wrap it around my head and bend down to arrange the fire wood before she even has a chance to get up.

She stares at me confused, then a grin spread across her lips, which she stopped trying to keep the flawless red they were when I met her. "You can't fool me Shin! I know what I saw...you have...fox ears." She put her hands on her head makeing her hands look like my ears. I feel like that's offensive.

"I have no idea what your talking about." I tell her in a confused voice, making a show of giving her the 'your weird' look. She opens her mouth and closes it looking at my head again.

"Shin stop playing around, its not like having weird pointy cat ears is the weirdest thing I've seen." She says shifting to sit on her knee's so she could sassily stick her hands on her hips.

"What's the weirdest thing you've seen then?" I ask genuinly concerned with what could be weirder then a guy having fox ears.

"Well this one time when this guy took off his p-"

"Suddenly decided I don't want to hear it!" I tell her quickly. She smirks at my skiddishness.

"You seem pretty innocent for a guy who went to a Brothel." She says waggling her eye brows at me. I snap my fingers sending chakra to them, and a tiny flame pops to my fingertips. I light the kinding and turn back to Yari who stares at my fingers.

"That's because by all terms of the sense, i am pretty Innocent." I tell her with a shrug.

"What? So your say- wait!" She looks at me then sweat drops. "You were just trying to distract me from the first topic!" She yells pointing a finger at me.

"Well I don't particularly want to go back to what you say that one man could do, no." I tell her truthfully. She runs her hands through her hair aggressively.

"No I mean your ears! They're cats ears!" Well clearly she wouldn't drop this, I don't think she would take the whole actually a fox, thing to well sooo, I needed a lie...

"Okay fine. I'm a ninja. I use a Jutsu to enhance my hearing, which is why I have the ears."

"So your from one of those fancy ninja villages?" She asks crouching down holding her knees and resting her chin on her knees. "My brother and I tried to get citizenship in the village that's in Fire nation, but we couldn't." I nod sitting back poking the fire with a stick.

"Yeah it takes allot to live in a ninja village, I don't think we let many civilians have permanent residence in our village, it especially depends on which nation you were born into." I explain to her, seeing no harm in her knowing this info.

"We aren't from any nation. My mother was in the same profession I'm in, so she traveled between brothels, and as for my father….well, who knows who he is." She tells me with a shrug. She seems indifferent while talking about this, but if I was in her shoes I would not be able to talk so casually.

"Well that explains it then, two children with no history, could easily be spies." I tell her frankly. "Our hokage is a softy for orphans though, it probably would have broken his heart to turn you guys away." She chuckles a bit.

"Well we didn't do to bad for ourselves, I mean until…" she trailed off looking away from me now. Being the awkward person I am I didn't know what to say to comfort her, so instead I quickly began setting out bedrolls. Yari watched me then I heard a small intake of breath and looked over at her slightly alarmed.

"Wait your from that village in the Leaf?" She asked excitedly. "I finally figured something out about you!" She exclaims excitedly jumping up and clapping. I sweat drop. Shoot I gave away to much. I such at this being sneaky crap.

"Okay mrs detective, stop jumping around and save your energy, we have a long walk tomorrow." She continued to do a victory dance, while I tried to with hold a blush.

"I outsmarted youuuuu." She sang out in delight. I rolled my eyes and laid down on my mat.

"Wow with this much energy, I guess you don't need breaks tomorrow." I leered turning my back to her and closing my eyes. I could imagine her sweat dropping before I heard the rustling of her getting into her roll.

.

Though neither of us truly divulged personal information I felt like we were learning allot about one another. I mean its hard not to when you were always together.

"I told you to wear a hat." I laughed as Yari touched her sore red cheeks, tender from being under the suns summer rays.

"Yeah and I told you to keep your thoughts to yourself." Yari yelled angrily. We had booked a hotel tonight, due to me caving into Yari's constant complaining. Though when she brought up how weird we looked even I had to cave. She was in sweats and a hoodie while I was dressed in a Yukata, though each of us alone would blend in, together we just looked like an eye sore. So we got her a simple black Yukata like my own to match me, and I convinced her to bind her chest and wear a head wrap like mine she might be confused for a male. The deal we struck was she would bind her chest and we would sleep in a nice hotel tonight and both shower, because apparently I smelled. We weren't of course expecting to be confused as a newly wed couple and put into a honey moon suit.

"So now I don't even look like a dude and my back hurts!" Yari grumbled pulling the wrap out of her yukata angrily. "Your sleeping on the floor." She mumbles throwing a pillow on the ground. I pick it up and watch her stretch out on the king sized bed with slight envy but relented, knowing she got cranky when she was in pain, and walking without end was painful to her. Something I often forgot, and I couldn't help but wince as I heard her suck in a breath as she massaged her legs.

.

I woke up earlier then Yari like usual, with Yari around I couldn't train but today, I finally would be able to. Quickly writing a note and activating a seal on her sleeping forehead I left the hotel and town in search of a clearing. It didn't take much effort to find a place far enough from all human life, to begin my stretches and training regime.

Only once my arms and legs felt weak and my body was slick was sweat did I start making my way back to the hotel noting the setting sun in the west. When I got back to our room, Yari was on the bed in a house robe towel in her hair surrounded by containers of various foods. I couldn't help but laugh as I made my way to the bathroom touching Yari's forehead canceling the henge seal I had put on her. It was when I found myself observing her lips a little to closely I noted that she had woken up.

"That felt weird, what did you do?" She asked rubbing her forehead. I backed up a few steps and cocked my head to the side.

"I had placed a henge seal on you, though you shouldn't have felt me cancel it." I muse mostly to myself. Yari just shrugs clearly not caring about what I said. "Well did you have fun today?" I ask her standing up and grabbing a towel to wipe off the sweat.

"Yeah, but where were you?" She asks peering into her food containers until she smiled joyfully picking one up and taking a dango stick out of it munching happily.

"I went to go train." I tell her gathering up fresh clothes from my bag and heading to the bathroom. "Go back to sleep, we will be doing full day hikes again tomorrow." I tell her looking away from her.

"Shin!" she called out almost in panic as I was about to walk into the bathroom. Out of instinct I turn around wanting to pull her close and keep her safe, but I see her standing infront of the bed looking at the ground with a deep blush. "Thanks for today…" She tells me looking into my eyes for a second before quickly looking away. I find myself holding back a giddy chuckle. Yari looks at the bed pursing her lips. "And when your back from your shower, you can sleep in the bed with me tonight if you would like…." She adds face turning a few shades brighter, before quickly jumping into bed turning her back to me.

My heart pounded as I went into the bathroom, the whole time I showered I was consumed with whether I should or shouldn't, but once I stepped into the now dark room, very aware of Yari's awake form in the bed, my body moved before my mind could resist and I went to the opposite side of the bed as her laying on my back, watching her chest move with her breaths. She began to fake little snores, trying to convince me she was asleep, I bite my cheeks to keep from laughing. After ten minuets she rolls over placing her head on my chest still fake sleeping, I put my arm around her and tug her closer my whole body screaming for more body contact with her, very aware of her fingers under my sleep shirt, and the smell of her hair.

Seven days into the trip and Yari seemed to run out of things to complain about, and the trip had turned pleasantly silent. We were still walking but at a faster pace, I almost didn't mind it, it was relaxing, she had turned from crass and loud, to friendly and….loving. We didn't talk about what we were, we just…acted, the conversations were joking and vibrant, but the craving to hold her, smell her, taste her, pounded in my ears.

The sun had just set but we weren't near a town so I headed into the forest listening to Yari's quiet footfalls behind me. I lay down my bed roll without a word and sigh as I lay into it. There was no point in a fire since we would be eating dry meat and some food pills, and it was warm season, even at night it was manageable as long as you were in a sleeping bag. Yari had done the same as me laying laying her own bedroll down beside me.

"So why are you looking for Orochimaru? You never really told me." She says crossing her arms behind her head in a way that reminded me off Shika. It was true, while we had grown close fast, I still made sure to be guarded about mission business or village things.

"Well." I thought about how to word it. "In my graduating class, there was a kid, who was rather annoying if you ask me, he was kidnapped or ran away with Orochimaru I don't really know, and I am trying to find him to bring him back, because my friends miss him. Apparently people really liked him." I winced as an image of Ino popped into my mind, then the guilt I had been pushing to the back of my heart grew faster then I could control.

"So your going to risk your life to bring back a guy you don't like, for your friends?" She asks raising an eyebrow at me. I chuckle a bit, yanking myself out of Ino related guilt, she chose someone else over me before I did.

"Well it's also the mission I was assigned." I admit to her. "And it's not that I don't like the guy, he was just...prickly and awkward, though if you ask certain people I'm sure they would say the same about me."

"In the morning your prickly." She says in agreement. "But your not awkward at least." I fake scoff at her.

"Well thanks, at least I'm not awkward."

"My brother sacrificed himself to Orochimaru so he wouldn't take me." Yari whispers so low someone with normal hearing would have mistaken it for the wind.

"Sounds like something I'd have done for my brother too." I have never been good at comforting, but i knew that was probably the worst thing to say. After a few minuets of silence I decide to try again. "Even if he said no and told me not to go, I'd sneak away from him and offer myself, because I'd rather be prisoner myself then both of us, or just him. I think that if it was in reverse, he was stuck with Orchimaru and I was free...well that would probably be worse then anything I could imagine. Like you right now, i'd be finding a way to save him." I look over at her, she was looking up, but tears streamed from the corner of her eye over her temple and into her hair. She smiled slightly.

"So you'll help me? I've been scared that you will just ditch me once i showed you." She said sniffling still looking up at the trees that hid the sky from view. I cringe a bit, since that had been my original plan, even if I had long changed my mind, it was still what I was going to do before I let myself feel for her..

"I will help you as much as I can...alright?" I give her an encouraging smile, she turns on her side looking towards me arms curled under her neck and head and nods, giving a small sad smile.

I watch as sleep slowly takes her before moving to cover her with a blanket, tucking it around her body for when the temperature really dipped.

For the first few days with her, I saw her as a sort of means to a end, though a rather annoying and whiny one. But now she was a person, albeit an annoying and whiny one, but a person- who felt pain and loss, and love.

Maybe because when I looked at her, and how determined she is to walk into a hideout probably full of skilled ninjas, with next to no skills for the sake of her brother, it made me remember how much I loved my family, and how far I'd go for anyone of them.

But for whatever reason the cranky, firey, black haired and blue eyed girl I met at a hostel, had somehow grown on me.

I saw her as a person I was determined to help and protect.

.

"It's around here I swear." Yari reassured leading me in the same circle for the fifth time. "I swear! I followed them and they went to this underground base, there was a stair case that lead into the ground I swear it was right around here!" Her fingers tangled in her hair as she spun eyes darting every which way, I beleived that she thought we were close, but it is hard to remember a specific place in a forest.

"Lets back track a few miles and I will do some surveying of the forest, then we are bound to find it, alright?" I calm her quickly, mostly because she was being far to loud, if we were close to his hideout someone was bound to hear.

We stopped at a small clearing about a mile west of our last position, Yari still seemed put off so I decided to let her cool off.

Summoning a shadow clone felt weird, like the weird feeling of pulling dried glue of your skin, except all over your entire body, nevermind the fact that looking at an exact replica of yourself was never not freaky.

I summoned two clones, but they quickly turned into birds and sat on each of my knees which were crossed. I felt the absence of chakra right away like a breath forcefully being tugged out of your lungs, so I took the time that I was sitting here still, to pull in more nature chakra.

I had small chakra coils, which meant my stagnet well of chakra wasn't that big, but because I could gather more chakra when needed, provided I could sit still for a while, it didn't really matter much. But that was also why in a long fight i'm more likely to throw seals than I am to do jutsu's. I could summon a fireball through a seal for half the chakra it would have taken to make my own. But like everyone else, I could die from chakra exhaustion if I use to much.

"Why was there three of you, then the other two turned to birds?" Yari asked, I didn't move though or even open my closed eyes since I was still halfway through gathering chakra. "Shin? Shin? Are you okay?" she gets up from the spot she was sitting and crouches in front of me, I can feel wind graze across my face as she waves her hands infront of my eyes. When she puts her hands down my chakra coils are filled and even though we had been walking for the past week I felt refreshed.

Yari was still examining me though, when I feel her moving her face closr to mine for what ever reason I pop my eyes open wide and scream, "RAWWW!" She inhails sharply and jumps back onto her butt with a loud scream, laughter escapes my lips immediately as I listen to her heart hammering. She places her left hand to her heart and heavily breathes before leveling a glare my way.

"WHAT THE HELL?!" She yells loudly. I wipe a few drops of moisture from my eyes dramatically and make a 'phew' sound which just seems to anger her further. "Why were you sitting there all still and creepy like?!" She asks in a quieter yell, though clearly still mad. I place the camera seals on my clone bird tranformations and they fly off, as I place the receiver seals on the ground infront of me.

"Well to answer all your questions in order. There was three Me's because I used a clone jutsu, then transformed them into birds so that they could fly around and find the base you described, these things here help me to see in real time what they are seeing." I tell her pointing at the recievers she was watching with wide eyes. "And I had been sitting all still and creepy like because it took allot of chakra to make those two clones, and I needed to gather more, incase I need to fight someone in a few minutes." She pulls her self closer to the receivers and tucks her black hair behind her ear.

"So are you an average ninja? Or a lame one?" She asks bluntly. I scoff a bit at the fact that she doesn't give me an 'awesome ninja' option.

"Well, I am a seals expert, so I guess I got that going for me." By the raising of her one eyebrow she doesn't seem to impressed. "I'm average, but I'm good at these gathering information missions and tracking, thats why I am a special jounin." She nods looking a bit confused by the names. Although civilians from the Fire would know what a chunin, jounin, genin, ect. is , civilians not from a ninja village wouldn't be so used to those terms. "My family are geniuses though. My dad is the head tactitioner, which mean he is the war strategizer. And my brother is probably going to surpass him in a few short years. My mother was a jounin before she retired." Yari smiles, she liked to hear about my family, the whole trip she would ask me little things like if we ate together or talked. I still hadn't told her I was technically a fox though, I'm not sure why, I just...didn't want to.

"Special jounin sounds higher up then jounin." Yari comments, although we are chatting both of us keep a laser focus on the receivers.

"No jounin status is for the best, that means that they are masters in all of the major attributes of being a ninja. But of course there are exceptions, like there is one guy who is just a master of taijutsu with low ability in everything else, though they have to be really powerful in their specialty for that to happen. Your more likely to make jounin with one specialty if that specialty is ninjutsu." I explain to her, though she still seems very confused.

"So then how do you become a Special jo- whatever?" She asks me curiously.

"Well, if the person is better then average at most things, and highly proficient in one thing, but not quite good enough for jounin, yet to good for chunin. Then they get promoted to SJ, and get into squads directly related to their specailty." She nods finally seeming to understand.

"Are you sure you should be telling me this?" She asks squinting a bit at me. "Aren't you ninja's all about secrets and shit?" I roll my eyes at her.

"Well it's not like this informtion would be news to anyone looking for ninja secrets." Like I would tell her anything that could be used against the Leaf. I may be an average ninja, but I wasn't stupid. She gives me an annoyed face but quickly looks back at the screens.

"So then if you are an...SJ, then that means that you are better than average." she reasons, seeming pleased.

"No, I was hastily promoted to SJ because they needed my seals for soomething." She gives me a skeptical look.

"Couldn't someone else just do them or something, or do you guys keep your seals secret and to yourself?" I was starting to think Yari though ninjas were mean selfish bastards.

"There were no other seal experts." I lie, since telling her the truth might give away to much information. It was so easy to get comfortable with her, there were times I had almost given away important information while casually chatting with her. Thankfully nothing slipped.

"That's dumb." She states pushing her bottom lip out.

"Well sealing is very difficult and takes a long time to learn and master. I speant my whole life devoted to learning it." Which in truth had been seven-ish years, and I had hardly devoted my life to seal work, but I spent allot of time learning and studying it.

"THATS IT! SHIN! LOOK" At the speed of light she hops to my side and yanks on my arm excitedly pointing to clone A's camera signal. Bird B lands on a near by branch watching the entrance.

"Okay so here is what we are going to do." I tell her as clone B runs into clone A, and thankfully without being told starts flying away from the hide out and circles a wide radius around it. "We are going to spend the next two days monitoring the entrance and surrounding area, then we will infiltrate." I say the last part hesitantly. It was a bad idea. It was such a bad idea.

"Two days?! Shin we are here, he might be in there!" She argues.

"Yeah, he could be, but so might five hundred enemies, or maybe Orochimaru himself, in both cases, it would be literal suicide if we went in." I argue in what I hope is a final voice, I just channel my inner mother, and it seems to work. She closes her lips and pushes them together looking angrily at the ground away from me. "Well I am going to summon two more clone birds, one will head to my boss, and the other will survey, while I gather more chakra you watch the screens okay?"

She gives me an angry face and doesn't react but I know she will do it, if only for her brother. But that doesn't mean her being angry at me didn't hurt, even though I wish it didn't.

.

It was midnight, and so far the only activity was people leaving the hideout, also I was beginning to think Orochimaru only took followers who looked inherently creepy. It was still in the hypothesis stages though, so don't quote me. Yari had been asleep for six hours and missed all the people leaving since they seemed to only move at night, so I couldn't even ask her for a second opinion.

Acording to my clone who followed the first group they headed to land of Lightning and later the other two teams I had seen also were spotted going the same way, clone C-was following the last team right now.

Clone D who unlike the other ones who were commen little birds, was a hawk, because it was the only bird shape I knew well enough, who was also fast to transform into. Anyways that Clone was several hours away from the fire.

"Oh shoot I fell asleep." Yari grumbles in a sleepy voice. I look over at her and smile at her crazy sleep hair, her trying to tame the notted curls with her fingers.

"You were asleep a while. How are you feeling?" I ask looking back to the screens.

"Like I really need coffee." She complains standing up and stretching. "And like I really want a toilet." She adds walking away from me, to go to the bathroom. Yes doing our business in the forest was uncomfortable at times like this when we plan to camp in the same spot for two whole days. We can't very well poo close to camp, or just anywhere or we may step in each others or our own poo.

That was an awkward conversation. Also it's awkward going to the designated bathroom area and seeing a poo that was not your poo.

I feel like I got off track again. I watched the hawk Cam silently dreading it reaching Tsunade, Since I was bringing an untrained civilian with me, to investigate inside. Which she may or may not ban. And if she does ban, I will disobey...which would really just be a paper work headache. Yari comes back and sits on her sleeping matt awkwardly.

It was hard to get a read on her personality, because when I first met her, she seemed catty and seductive, then when we started our journey she seemed allot like Ino, controlling, whiny, loud.

But now, now she was quieter, asked allot of questions, got nervous over allot of things and if I didn't know any better was shy at times. It was strange, she had changed so much in just a week. I wasn't sure which personality was really her, but she excited me, like a challenge I wanted to figure out for the rest of my life. I blushed deeply at my own thoughts, making her look at me questionably.

"Okay. We need to go over the game plan." I tell her hitting the ground on the other side of all the receivers. She walks over and sits though she does throw a small eyeroll in. "You are going to stay right behind me. Even if you feel like your in the way, don't move. Understand?" I ask giving her a serious look in the eyes. She gives me a small nod. "And if for whatever reason I tell you to run, you get out of that base completely and run to the nearest town and try to blend in with a group of people, that may be your only chance." Her eyes widen at those words. I'm not trying to freak her out, but I also want her to understand the danger level we are going into.

"Why don't you just teach me some ninja moves?" She asks as though that is an obvious solution.

"Well, it takes allot longer to learn to fight then a day, despite what books and movies tell you. Ninjutsu is out of the question, ninja's spend years of chakra training and control exercises before they can even think of doing a low leveled one. Besides you have civilian leveled chakra, since you have never used it or trained with it before."

"Yeah but I know some holds and taijutsu moves we had to learn for you know...my profession." She acts awkward at the mention of her job, I just nod giving it no mind at all hoping that would help her awkwardness.

"At best your a genin level in Taijutsu, but Orochimaru has never had a weak subordinate that I have known about." She gulps, but gravely nods. "So stick right by my side and we will make it out of this just fine."

.

The messenger clones camera goes out as the clone dies.

Tsunade did not like me bringing a civilian with me. Infact she detested it so much she killed me, well...killed a fake me.

In the ends though she had given me permission to bring Yari, but I wasn't allowed to die.

"That was your leader?" Yari asked still looking tramatized. I gulp and nod to her.

"Yea, she is normally...less...strangling." I assure her.

"That's good."

.

The worst part of getting into the hideout had been opening the front door. It was the only entrance, I was expecting a three man guard on it, but when I opened it, I was not thrust into combat, in fact the most sinister thing that happened was dust flew up and into Yari's eye, and we had to stand there as she blinked it out.

The door led to a long unlit hall, which we were currently venturing through, I could see in the dark, thanks to my fox eyes, but Yari had two hands dug into my Haori since she couldn't see.

"One, two, three four, guess my sister really was a whore." An unsettling gruff voice spoke through the silence. Yari paled an stiffened behind me, her grip on my shirt getting tighter. "Five, six, seven, eight, I suppose that was just fate." The same voice spoke from the other direction. I could not pick up a scent or a chakra signature.

"At first the ryhming thing was witty, but now it's just boring." I say flatly. And errie laughter without any joy floods the cavern.

"Tell me...are you here to save me? I don't need saving, that you will soon see."

"Aoi? Is that you?" Yari asks emotions choking her voice. I quickly grab her wrist incase she decides to run towards the voice or something. Then again he opened with calling her a whore so I don't know what she is feeling.

"Hey man, it must suck being a disembodied voice, you sure you don't need saving?" I ask flippantly.

"I Have a body you swine! Kabuto told me about you, I can't kill you, but thats fine." does this guy  
ryhme everything? Even his thoughts?

"Kabuto and I go way back." Who is Kabuto again? I feel like I should know him.

"Kabuto hates you, and Sasuke too." I laugh a bit at that, clearly I should know who this Kabuto is.

"Well I'm pretty sure they both secretly love me." Aoi the voice growls. "Sasuke around? I borrowed his shirt and I need to return it, before he has a hissy fit."

"Your not going anywhere, I'll kill you as a pair!" He yells loudly and suddenly I can smell and sense him. He was infront of us, barrolling towards us.

"Okay you have to admit that rhyme sucked!" I yell pushing Yari back and getting out my seal disks. Aoi comes into my sights, he is tall, and bandaged from head to toe, only thing showing was his mouth. I throw a Seal disk as I feel his chakra fluctuate from use. A chain inhumanly large explodes from his chest just as a wave comes out of the floor and sweeps him back.

"DON'T KILL HIM SHIN!" Yari cries out from where she sits on the ground. "It's him! That's my brother! I know it is!"

Well...this is going to be problematic. Aoi's chains caught me of guard, but thankfully i had enough time to grab Yari and dodge, I place Yari down again, glancing at the faintly glowing chain jutting out from Aoi's chest, I throw a blue inferno seal under the chakra metal, scoop Yari into my arms and run the other way, as the thick heat off my seal hits my back.

Aoi Cries out which causes Yari to scream, and claw me.

"He is fine Yari! I won't kill him!." I yell at her putting her down. I turn back towards her brother, his chakra chain was severed cleanly where the blue inferno hit him, slowly the half sized chain went back into his body.

Naturally as a seal expert I knew allot about the leading clan in seals, though now they were mostly extinct. The Uzamaki's, like Naruto, were sealing geniuses, and other noticeable talents they had, which of course varied from person to person, was when you bit into them, their chakra would flood into you and heal you, or these chakra chains that Aoi was trying to kill us with.

"Aoi! Aoi listen to me!" Yari cried attempting to run towards him as he crouched down some of the bandages torn from the chains. I held Yari tightly around the chest but she still attempted to crawl forward, using her hands and feet to grip the floor and try to get ahead, she was balling now desperate to get to him.

But Aoi didn't seem to care about her, though sadly he did seem to remember her.

"Aoi, it's me. It's me Yari!" Aoi let off a growl and punched the ground hard enough for cracks to form in the stone beneath our feet.

"YOUR NOT MY SISTER!" Aoi screamed so loud I thought my ear drums might burst. "Your not my family! I have a new family now!" I wanted to point out how that didn't rhyme, but the words he spoke hit Yari so hard she stopped fighting agaist my hold on her.

"Aoi we are twins! We are family! You and me against the world remember? REMEMBER!?" Yari's words were frantic.

"I SAID NO!" He yelled then in one leap he was infront of us, I only had enough strength to throw Yari behind me before his fist collided with the right side of my face sending me flying roughly into the near wall. Despite the pain and ringing in my ears I found my footing and pivoted sending my leg to collide with his side, but as the top of my foot hit flesh it was niether Aoi's side, nor Aoi at all.

With a sickenning crack I kicked Yari's face and sent her flying several feet backwards.

"YARI!" Aoi and I yelled. I rushed towards her noticing from he corner of my eyes as Aoi began ripping off the bandages on his body while moaning in pain.

Yari's right side of her face was already swelling, but her eyes were opened as she dazedly looked around, her eyes landed on me then cleared, she shot up looking frantically for Aoi.

When I looked at Aoi I felt sick to my stomach. He looked like two people sewn together, half off him was a women with dark caramel skin, full lips brown eyes and frizzy hair, while the other half was soft long black hair blue eyes and a pale male. The line where the two were sewed together looked raw and painful, like it never properly healed, or was constantly being torn.

He moved around screaming out in pain as the other half seemed to move in a different way, they ell to their knees, both side of the body holding itself around the waist.

"Please Yari." Aoi whispered. "Please. Please kill me." Yari choked, then sobbed crawling towards him, shakily placing a pale hand to his side of his face. "Please kill me. It hurts so bad." He is crying and all I can do watch.

"I can't. I can't this is all my fault." She cried digging her head into his side of his neck. "Please don't make me." Aoi stroked his sisters hair as she sobbed then looked towards me.

"Orochimaru has gotten a new host body, and took Sasuke to the hideout in the north, that's all I know." Aoi tell me quickly. "Please kill me, while I am still myself." I gape at him.

"Only if Yari agrees." I finally whisper after a few moments of silence. She grips him tighter then slows her sobs.

"Just let me hold him. Let me hold him until the end." I watch as the two grip each other desperately and despite what the ninja rules say, tears fall down my face. I took out a Kunai then swung around behind Aoi, blinking the tears out of my eyes I position the Kunai, then without warning dig it into his back until I feel the tip tear through his heart. Aoi cries out but then is silent. His heart tries to beat a few more times, despite the knife in it but stops.

That's when I catch it. The second heart beat. Quickly I scramble for another knife, but it's to late.

On the last beat of Aoi's heart the other half takes control and encloses Yari's head between their hands and twists violently, in such a sickening way, I knew it would be tattooed into my memory.

Yari lets out a small squeak as I dig the knife into the last heart.

Then only my heart is left beating.

* * *

 **honestly I'm very sorry if this chapter feels at all forced! bear with me till next chapter. haha! this chapter was a means to an ends so I hope you enjoyed the bit of fluff, and utter heart break, and now into more crazy mayhem! yaaaaaay...**.. ^.^


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